


A Yuletide Gift for Yui

by Aurya



Category: Sword Art Online
Genre: Funny, Gen, Heartwarming, Listed complete but may still be updated later on
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-24
Updated: 2020-07-24
Packaged: 2021-02-25 23:26:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 32,798
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21923626
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aurya/pseuds/Aurya
Summary: Yui is happy being able to spend time with her parents in ALO, she really is - but sometimes she wishes she was able to do a little more. After Kirito makes one too many jumps to GGO to invite Sinon, Yui asks a question that gives him a wonderful idea...(Started as a holiday one shot, will now get new chapter(s) every month I'm in the mood to write for it)
Comments: 74
Kudos: 55





	1. SAO-K: Launch

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> When the official translation gives names the western order, I usually ignore the auto-complete suggestions and tag them in the western order and let AO3's synonymous tags sort it out, but SAO usernames make that a whole lot harder so I just said 'frick it' and left it to the autocomplete.
> 
> There is nothing funnier than watching someone get their Christmas shopping done early and then WAIT as time crawls around them. Draco tries to be wrapped up by the time November ends, which means he doesn't have anything panicky to do through December. His gaming's in a funk, he has a story idea he doesn't want to write until after Christmas, and neither of us have the stamina to spend a whole day indoors neither reading nor writing. (Give it a moment, it'll come to you.)
> 
> Me? I got a sweet little one-shot that I've been considering for a while and I decided to make it a Christmas story.
> 
> So, my SAO witness so far: anime Season I and II, and Alternative anime... is that one in seasons yet? Nothing past the IRL meetup with Pitohui. That's it. Haven't read the novels or the manga, haven't played any of the games or watched any playthroughs. Nothing from Alicization onward, no Ordinal Scale. (Netflix is pissing me off, Ordinal Scale comes up on the search predictions but it's not on the listing.) As such, I'm not expecting this to mesh with canon, this is written exclusively for the heartwarming. I haven't watched SAO in a while because I'm currently experiencing connection difficulties, so excuse me if I miss some minor elements, but I know all the big plot points well enough.

"How's that one looking, Yui?"

Suguha stepped into Kazuto's bedroom and was surprised by what she found. When he hadn't answered her calling him for dinner, she'd assumed he was in a dive; instead, he was sitting at his computer, with a pair of open-backed headphones resting over his ears. He'd picked the headphones for a reason - the design meant it was much easier for outside sounds to reach him - but apparently from across the house that was a bit much.

His webcam was running, and Yui was visible in a sub-window on the top left of the screen; at Kazuto's question, her response came through. _"The reaction intervals are a little too low, papa. They don't give you as much time as they should."_ Then, when he was about to start typing; _"Also, Leafa's at your door."_

"Hmm?" Kazuto turned around. "Oh, Sugu..."

Suguha smirked. "Dinner's ready, onii-chan."

"Thanks." He unplugged his headphones. "I'll be right back, Yui."

 _"No hurry, papa,"_ Yui assured him, her voice coming through the computer's speakers now. _"There's not a lot left."_

Kazuto got to his feet as Suguha raised an eyebrow. "Not a lot left for what?"

"I'll tell you over dinner," he replied; he tapped quickly at his keyboard, and a 'mic off' icon appeared on the screen before they made their way downstairs.

It was snowing outside, to Kazuto's surprise (leaving Suguha wondering how he'd missed that with the curtains open on his bedroom window directly behind his computer); once they'd sat down to eat, Suguha asked, "What were you and Yui working on?"

"A little project with the Seed," Kazuto explained. "We're trying to remake the original Aincrad."

Suguha's gaze shot up. "Huh?"

"The new Aincrad in ALO is pretty thorough," Kazuto admitted, "but there's a lot of deviation. Stuff like flight, magic, and elemental attacks didn't exist in SAO, so they have to change things to keep them balanced. Me and Yui are trying to redo the original. Working title so far is SAO-K."

At that comment, Suguha's gaze narrowed. " _K_?"

"K, as in 'Kayaba'," Kazuto explained.

"Not as in 'Kirigaya'?" Suguha accused.

"I was originally gonna name it after his user ID," Kazuto defended, "but he went by 'Heathcliff'."

"What's wrong with SAO-H?"

The instant it was out of her mouth, Suguha realized what was wrong with it, and her face turned bright red; Kazuto's eyebrow went up, and Suguha's gaze went down. "Nevermind."

They ate for a moment in silence.

"So what's the real reason?"

Kazuto gave an inquisitive hum around a full mouth.

Suguha raised her gaze to him. "I mean, you've never complained about the new Aincrad. I don't think _anyone_ from SAO has. I mean, there's the whole 'so used to swords I don't want to use magic' thing, but no one's got a major problem with it, and Asuna and the others definitely haven't complained. Now suddenly you're trying to remake the game like the old one?"

"And you think I don't just want the variety?" Kazuto argued.

"If you wanted variety, you'd play GGO more often," Suguha countered.

"I-" Kazuto narrowed his gaze. "Fair."

Suguha aimed her finger upwards in the general direction of Kazuto's room. "Is this about Yui?"

Kazuto nodded. "It's kind of complicated," he admitted. "Did I give you the whole story about her in SAO?"

"I feel like you did," Suguha admitted, "but run it by me one more time."

"Yui was originally designed as a mental health program in SAO," Kazuto started. "She was part of the Cardinal engine that was designed to run the game without any human interference. When the death game started, she was prevented from interacting with the players. You can imagine how hard that is on a counselor. After a while, she ended up glitching into the game area, and me and Asuna found her. Eventually, Cardinal noticed her, and tried to delete her. I was able to save her code as an in-game item, and her code itself was saved my NervGear's memory. I thought I was gonna have to put her back together from scratch until things happened in ALO."

He was deliberately glossing over things to avoid getting too technical, but he still glanced up to make sure Suguha hadn't zoned out.

"ALO was originally built over the base of SAO - including the full Cardinal engine. When I first logged into ALO and all my stats and inventory carried over, most of the item files didn't correspond to items in ALO, so they were corrupted, but Yui's Heart was just a relabelling of one of Cardinal's elements. So when I activated that..."

"...it reactivated Yui in ALO," Suguha finished. "That's how she ended up as your Navi-Pixie."

"Right," Kazuto confirmed. "She wasn't still considered admin-level, I think something got lost before I saved her, but she was still Yui. Thing is, that only worked because ALO was still using the same unlimited Cardinal engine as SAO was."

Suguha nodded. "I remember her saying something like that during the Excalibur quest," she remembered. "That's why we almost had Ragnarok, right? The whole Cardinal was able to update things without the devs' input." Her gaze narrowed. "And the other games made with the Seed..."

"They're using a more limited Cardinal engine," Kazuto confirmed. "They don't have all the finer stuff like that, they can't run self-updates... and they don't have the mental health program. Which mean's Yui's Heart doesn't correspond to anything outside of ALO."

"Do you still have that item?" Suguha asked. "I thought your inventory was pretty much empty when I first met you in ALO."

Kazuto shook his head. "When Yui manifested, the item left my inventory. But the code for the item still existed in my NervGear, so I ported it to my computer properly. That's how I was able to give her all the other functionality she's got so far. Being able to call Asuna and work with the cameras and talk on my computer and everything. I've got her saved to my computer and linked to a reliable cloud backup in case anything goes wrong."

"No cutting corners when it comes to your little girl," Suguha teased, "huh, onii-chan?"

It was Kazuto's turn to blush. "No," he agreed, "absolutely not. Which brings me to the problem. ALO is the only game where Yui is recognized. None of the other games made with the Seed have her. So whenever I, say, visit GGO to invite Sinon to a raid, Yui has to stay behind with Asuna."

"Can she still be in ALO when Asuna's not there?" Suguha asked.

"Yeah," Kazuto confirmed, "ALO recognizes her independently. I think she's cleaned the house sometimes when we were logged off." Suguha giggled, and even Kazuto smiled briefly before continuing; "But she's completely barred from any games made with the Seed, let alone anything that someone might have developed from the ground up. Even if I were to somehow add Yui's Heart to my inventory again and transferred to, like, GGO, it would just be lost when the 'prevent inconsistent items' script clears my inventory."

Suguha paled. "Hard no."

"Absolutely a hard no," Kazuto agreed.

"... _Do_ you transfer when you go to GGO?" Suguha asked.

"No, I created a fresh account for use with GGO," Kazuto explained. "Sinon keeps trying to get me to play it regularly, said it looks stupid when a BoB winner is sitting around in the default character outfit and with no stats."

"Do you have the same avatar still?" Suguha inquired.

Kazuto nodded. "Sinon thought I was cheating, since avatars in GGO are randomized. I think it just recognized my login and-"

In the same instant, the two of them realized they were getting sidetracked, shook their heads, and insisted, " _Never mind._ "

"So," Suguha asked, "how does Yui feel about being stuck in ALO?"

"It's not being stuck in ALO that she has a problem with," Kazuto explained. "She's not, really, she's practically with us in the real world if we let her. It's the fact that she can't come with us to other games. I've had this conversation with her more times than I can count. I tell her I'm going to GGO to invite Sinon, she says she wants to come, I tell her that the Seed won't recognize her, she complains about me leaving her behind. Last time, she said that I should make her recognize as a player instead of the default settings."

Suguha blinked. "You can do that?"

Kazuto loosed a deep sigh. "...Maybe?"

There was a worry in his voice that told Suguha it wasn't a simple matter. "How maybe?"

"I haven't touched Yui's code since we left SAO," Kazuto explained. "Kayaba programmed Cardinal, Cardinal developed Yui. She's _way_ beyond me. Everything she can do - the cameras, the calls, the web-chat - it's not something I've done to her, directly. I've just written programs that acknowledge Yui when she tries to interface with them. If I tried to affect her code... I don't even know. Maybe I could make her register on the Seed as a player?"

He shook his head. "Or maybe I could destroy her in a way that I can't even comprehend. I can't risk it."

They finished their meal in quiet, letting the mood settle.

"Where does SAO-K come in?" Suguha asked once they'd both finished.

"Yui remembers the monsters in SAO better than I do," Kazuto observed. "So I used the Seed to create a battle arena, and designed it to recognize Yui as hostile to the monsters. I'm trying to program them to match how they were; once I think I have it right, I put it in the arena and Yui observes to make sure it's right."

Suguha sighed. "So that's it?" she asked. "You're doing this so Yui can be your beta tester?"

"Alpha tester," Kazuto insisted. "SAO-K isn't nearly far enough along to be called a beta yet. Yui's working things out during the alpha." He smiled. "Once we have it done enough, I've invited the others to join me for a proper beta test - so we can show Yui what I'm really doing this for."

"...What are you really doing this for?" Suguha asked.

Kazuto leaned forward - superfluous when Yui's receiving mic was turned off, but better safe than sorry. "I'm coding something separate at the SAO survivor's school where Yui can't see it," he muttered. "On the start of the beta test, I'm going to install it in SAO-K. It's going to recognize Yui as a player - and auto-generate a Seed-compatible player account."

"What?!" Suguha reflexively forced her shout into a whisper in response to Kazuto's lowered volume. "Wait, you mean you're going to...?"

"I don't know if it'll work with ALO," Kazuto admitted. "Yui and I haven't taken a good look at it. But it should work with any game running the Seed's limited version of Cardinal. SAO-K is still a full-fledged game, it'll give Yui a feel for what it's really like to be a player, and then if she wants, she can transfer to almost any game I have."

Suguha smiled. "Does Asuna know what you're doing?"

"Yeah," Kazuto confirmed. "She's got the full story. Silica, Lisbeth, and Klein just know about SAO-K in general, they're all invited to the beta. I was thinking of inviting Sinon."

"You should," Suguha agreed. "And I'd love to come too. When's the beta gonna be ready?"

* * *

_"Merry Christmas, Papa!"_

Kazuto chuckled as Yui's voice echoed out of his computer, waking him up. "Merry Christmas, Yui," he returned.

 _"Mama called earlier,"_ she mused while he was still trying to get his body moving. _"She said everyone received the setup for SAO-K. When do you want me to open the server for the beta?"_

"...How about now?" Kazuto asked.

When he had a look at his computer, Yui's surprised expression filled a screen-spanning chat window. _"Now?"_ she asked. _"Isn't it kind of early? It's Christmas morning."_

"I know," Kazuto insisted, picking up a flash drive he had sitting next to his computer tower, on the opposite side of the camera. "I have a Christmas present for you, too."

Yui blinked. _"For me?"_

"There's something I need to install for SAO-K," Kazuto explained. "I need you to promise you're not going to look, okay?"

 _"...Okay, Papa,"_ Yui agreed, uncertain. _"You sure this is going to install properly?"_

"It'll be fine," Kazuto assured her, plugging in the flash drive. Yui closed her eyes as the window opened; after a few clicks and a few taps, Kazuto closed the window. "Start up the server," he mused, drawing out his phone. "I'm gonna text everyone and tell them the beta's up."

 _"Are you really gonna start now?"_ Yui asked.

Kazuto hit 'send'. "Yeah," he confirmed. "I'm gonna log in. I want you to wait three minutes, and then manifest in front of the fountain at the Town of Beginnings, okay? Near the inscription."

Yui's expression betrayed her curiosity. _"Sure..."_

With a smile, Kazuto picked up his AmuSphere and slipped it on, lying back down on his bed.

"Link start!"

* * *

"Kirito!"

To the surprise of absolutely no one, Asuna, Leafa, Silica, Lisbeth, Klein, and Sinon had logged in just about when Kirito did. Leafa had the dorkiest grin on her face, Asuna quickly glomped Kirito before he could stop her, and the others looked curious. "Kind of an odd time to start a beta test," Sinon mused, "don't you think?"

"What kind of mama would I be if I didn't let the daughter open her present first?" Asuna asked.

"In my house, the parents usually get their presents first," Klein argued.

Silica turned to him. "Whaaaat? And the kids have the patience for that?"

Lisbeth double-took. "Wait, you mean this is something for Yui?"

Leafa gave Kirito a look. "You didn't give _anyone else_ the full story?"

"She'll be here in just a moment."

Sure enough, once three minutes had passed since Kirito's log-in, a flash of light appeared in front of the fountain. When it faded, Yui was standing there - and Sinon, Lisbeth, Silica, and Klein all yelped when they saw the green cursor over her head. A confused Yui blinked for a moment, uncertain what they were reacting to; then Kirito recognized the glance of someone looking at their HUD, and her mouth dropped as she turned back to her parents. Abruptly, she turned around, leaning over the fountain to get a good look at herself; player cursors didn't appear directly in the field of view of the player who held them, but they were visible in reflections, and Yui needed the confirmation.

After a moment, she glanced back. "Papa...?"

Leafa giggled.

Asuna nodded.

Kirito spoke. "Welcome to SAO-K.... player."

Tears of joy welled in Yui's eyes; she charged forward and leapt at her parents, and Kirito and Asuna caught her in a joyful embrace as the others cheered.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ugh, this is why I don't usually write anime fanfics properly. I watch anime subbed when I can because I know enough Japanese linguistic rules to appreciate minor things that get lost in a dub, but it feels so weird to use a term like "onii-chan" in English. I'm forgoing the honorifics on people's names just so I can focus more on my story instead of my linguistics.
> 
> Everything on the section about Yui's personal details is a broadside of headcanons, don't take my word for anything. I actually had a What-If sort of fic I wanted to write after I had a proper rewatch of SAO, that's the basis for a lot of that, I might write it sometime in 2020.
> 
> Anyways, I hope you guys enjoyed this little bit of sweet, let me know what you think!


	2. SAO-K: One Month

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ugh. This is the first time I wrote something intending for it to be a oneshot and decided to make it continuous afterwards. I hate rearranging the chapter notes for what has become the first chapter. There's so much extra work involved. And you can't just put them in chapter notes for Chapter 1 of 1 or they don't show up. (Which also means you can't double your notespace on a oneshot.)

The sunlight coming in through her window woke Asuna up; with a yawn, she started to rise, finding it was a lot earlier than she wanted to be up on a weekend. Grumbling slightly, she reached for her phone; on Boxing Day, Kazuto had sent an update for the app she used to call Yui. Rather than automatically opening the connection when she called, it brought up a status menu that told her where Yui was - including what game she was in and whether she was a player - and how long she'd been logged in. He'd also added a functional messaging system so she could send Yui a text if she was in-game instead of interrupting her with a call.

To no surprise, the status read Sword Art Online - K [beta]; Yui had been logged in since yesterday afternoon.

A smile rose on Asuna's face. _Yui's been spending a lot of time there,_ she observed as she got out of bed. _I mean, she totally deserves it. She's finally a player, I can't blame her for wanting to play a lot. Still, maybe I should rein her in a little bit. She hasn't been in ALO since SAO-K launched._

She slapped her cheeks in reprimand. _Well, of course she hasn't,_ she admitted, _we still don't know if Kirito's player code will work with ALO. We haven't figured out whether it uses the Seed's engine yet._

After breakfast (and a curt conversation with her mother where she informed her that that yes, all her homework was done, so she was going to be using her AmuSphere), Asuna headed back to her bedroom and picked up her phone. She sent a quick message to Kazuto and the others to let them know she'd be in SAO-K; then she picked up her AmuSphere and put it on before lying down in bed.

"Link start!"

* * *

It always felt weird, coming to SAO-K; Kirito hadn't programmed any avatar customization yet, so everyone still looked like they did IRL (not that that led to a whole lot of difference for the SAO survivors, but every fairy race had its design differences, and Leafa and Sinon were even more noticeable). Asuna always found herself checking her menu as she logged in to make sure that the Log Out button was still there. Then there was the stat difference; in ALO, everyone had reached a respectable level, but in SAO-K, nobody had made level 10 yet, and everyone's equipment reflected that.

Because SAO-K was still in a limited beta with a small group of testers, the players were visible to each other on the map. At least, that's what Kirito had said, before everyone had broken down laughing and made him admit the real reason; without wings to expedite travel, no one wanted to scour an entire floor of Aincrad looking for each other, least of all Yui and her parents. No one had travelled too far from the Town of Beginnings so far - between Yui getting used to being a player, Sinon getting used to a game where the only ranged weapons were throwing picks, and everyone else getting used to being at a low level - so Asuna was somewhat surprised to find that the city was empty when she opened her map.

She zoomed out to try and figure out where any other players were - and was surprised to find out where the nearest one was.

"Horunka?" Asuna tapped the indicator, confirming it was Yui. "What's she doing there?"

After briefly double-checking her equipment (she and Kirito had spent more time equipping Yui than equipping themselves), she made to depart.

* * *

A couple hours later, Asuna arrived at the village. Travelling the first floor on foot, by herself, had brought back some less-than-pleasant memories from the original Aincrad; as she stepped into the safe zone, she opened her map to bring up Yui's marker and remind herself that she was in SAO-K. She zoomed in so the map focused on the village, letting her pinpoint Yui's location - and Asuna was surprised to discover she was in the nearest inn.

"Yui," Asuna murmured, "did you fall asleep in here?"

She made her way to the inn in question; searching the rooms revealed that not only was Yui indeed sleeping, but she hadn't even locked the door of the room she was in. With a smile, Asuna stepped up to the bed; then she sat down at the edge of the mattress, watching her.

The disturbance of the mattress had Yui stirring; she opened her eyes slowly, looking up drearily.

"Good morning," Asuna greeted, taking note of the fact that she was still wearing equipment.

Yui blinked. "Mama?" She wiped the sleep out of her eyes. "Why did you wake me up so early?"

With a giggle, Asuna tapped her temple lightly to direct her attention to the clock on her HUD.

"Hmm?" Yui shook her head. "10?"

"You fell asleep in SAO-K," Asuna observed. "You didn't even think to log out first?"

"I didn't mean to," Yui apologized, sitting up properly. "I was just going to lie down for a bit and check my drops..."

Asuna leaned in. "How late were you up last night?" she asked, with a slight reprimanding tone to her voice.

Yui turned away. "Not... very late."

"Don't lie to your Mama, Yui," Asuna warned. "When did you come to the inn?"

Yui hung her head, causing her hair to hide her face slightly. "...6."

"6 in the morning?!" Asuna exclaimed. "You were playing all night?"

"I'm sorry, Mama," Yui pleaded. "I got wrapped up in a quest and..."

"Seems like you jumped at one at a little too low a level," Asuna observed. "Maybe you should have waited until you had a party." She bopped Yui's forehead lightly. "Either way, you're not supposed to be gaming so late. I know you don't _technically_ need to sleep, but if you can get tired enough to pass out when you lie down, you still can't be up so late."

Yui shook her head. "I was just working too hard," she defended. "If I'm not running around so long next time..."

" _Next_ time?" Asuna accused. "Are you planning to play an all-nighter again? Do I need to start giving you a curfew?"

"Mama," Yui protested, "that's not what I mean..."

Asuna giggled, tapping Yui's chin. "Maybe I'll have to get your Papa to set up parental controls on your player account."

" _Mama!_ " Yui swatted Asuna's hand away. "I said I was sorry!"

Asuna laughed, pulling her daughter close. "I'm just teasing," she assured. "I'm not going to make any hard limits like that." Yui pouted, and Asuna sighed. "But still, no more all-nighters, okay?"

"Okay, Mama." Yui raised a hand to her mouth as she yawned. "But can I go back to bed?"

"Log out first," Asuna insisted. "You shouldn't fall asleep in the game." As Yui started to open her menu, Asuna spoke up. "I am gonna ask your Papa to change some things, though. See if he can make it so you auto log-out if you fall asleep like the AmuSphere does."

Yui shook her head. "I don't think it would work that way," she mused. "The AmuSphere reads your vital signs and force-disconnects if it detects you passing out or your heart rate going up too high. My sleep is too different from human sleep for the same processes to work."

Asuna hummed. "Maybe," she admitted, "but Kirito's done some pretty impressive programming already. Who's to say he can't make your account notice _you_ passing out?"

A smile rose on Yui's face. "If anyone can do it," she agreed, "Papa could."

She reached for her menu and tapped the log-out button, vanishing in a shimmer of light. Asuna smiled, opening her menu and zooming out the map to check if any one else had come into SAO-K while she'd been coming after Yui; with no one else online, she decided to log out as well.

* * *

Later that evening, Yui logged back into SAO-K to find herself still lying in the same bed in Horunka. After making sure she was properly equipped (and realizing that she hadn't _un_ equipped before she went to bed), she made her way out of the inn and found Silica and Lisbeth conversing outside.

"Morning, Yui," Lisbeth greeted as she approached. "How was your gaming session last night?"

Yui turned bright red. "Did Mama tell _everyone_?"

"That's what parents are for," Silica remarked. "Don't worry, everyone in SAO had a bad all-nighter at some point or another. Quite frankly, it's a miracle the Assault Teams even made it to Floor 75."

"Speak for yourself," Lisbeth insisted. "The closest thing I had to an all-nighter was passing out in the forge."

With a roll of her eyes, Silica turned back to Yui. "We were gonna do some level grinding around here," she admitted, "do you want to join us?"

"I did change up my loadout again," Yui insisted, "you sure you don't mind?"

"You know what," Lisbeth remarked, "even if you _can_ come to ALO, I'm not making you any weapons until you have the same equipment type for longer than a _week_. I mean, seriously, you have to have tried every weapon type in SAO-K by now."

Silica slapped her arm in reprimand. "She's never been a player before," she retorted, "she hasn't had the chance to experiment with her weapons. I know it took me a couple months before I settled on a dagger."

Lisbeth turned on her. "But why would you keep changing?" she asked. "If you like how something looks, why not just learn to use it?"

"Just because something looks nice doesn't mean it works well," Yui insisted. "Especially with bodies as small as me and Silica. If the fanciest sword in the game is taller than we are, we **can't** use that well without flying or something."

"In most VRMMOs," Lisbeth observed, "the fanciest sword is the **strongest** sword."

"Still doesn't mean much in a combat situation," Silica argued. "If the strongest weapon in the game is one I have to drag on the ground behind me like some evil knight the size of an ogre, I'll settle for hit rates, thanks."

"You wanna talk about small girls with hit rates," mused a voice from nearby, "I should show you the videos from the new tournament format in GGO."

Yui and Silica turned to see Sinon standing there; Lisbeth sighed, leaning her head back. " _An_ _other_ player with inconsistent taste in weapons," she mused.

"Sorry for coming from a game full of firearms," Sinon retorted sarcastically.

"You should be!" Lisbeth complained. "You're still the only player in ALO who wants to snipe someone from 100 meters! Now you come to SAO, and you think Kirito's gonna have included projectile weapons when he's trying to make the game exactly like it was before?"

"In her defense," Yui pointed out, "ALfheim Online **was** built over the alpha of Sword Art Online. There were originally going to be ranged weapons like bows and boomerangs."

Silica recoiled. "We lost almost four thousand players with nothing but melee weapons and Throwing Picks," she observed. "I don't wanna think about how high the death count would've been if you could hit someone from farther than you can fling a dagger."

Lisbeth shook her head. "I don't think-"

"You can throw a dagger?" Sinon interrupted.

"Huh?" Silica turned to her. "Well, that came out of nowhere. Yeah, you can throw your weapons at the monsters if you think it'll help in any way. But you're not very likely to pick it back up before the monster's dead, so I don't know how much good it'll do you."

Yui set a hand on her chin. "You have to have the dual-wielding ability to use Sword Skills with multiple weapons," she observed, "but if you only draw one, you can still use the Sword Skills for that weapon type. If you armed yourself with multiple daggers..."

"Yeah," Lisbeth mused, "but how many weapons slots can you equip?"

"As many as your avatar has room for," Yui replied.

" _What._ "

Sinon aimed a finger at Yui. "No, that makes sense," she observed. "When you equip your weapon, you have to drag it over your avatar to show where you're comfortable drawing it from. That's why you can wear Throwing Picks wherever you want. If I wore like a dozen daggers..."

"That's gonna take a _lot_ of Col," Lisbeth warned.

"Plus the best weapons are monster-drops or player-made," Silica added. "You're not gonna get ten of the best daggers from monster drops with any reasonable likelihood."

"Thank you, Layton and Wright," Sinon sighed.

Yui looked towards the weapon shop. "That might be something to try," she agreed.

"Not you too!" Silica protested.

Sinon smiled, stepping forward. "Come on, Yui," she mused, "let's see if they've got any aerodynamic daggers."

She and Yui started towards the weapon shop, and Silica and Lisbeth exchanged glances before slumping over in surrender.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Draco's gonna let me have it when he finds out I used a significant amount of information off a wiki to write a chapter. I know this is a bad practice, but I really can't justify Yui going all the way to Tolbana overnight when it took the players a month to find the boss dungeon that lay around there.


	3. ALO: Arrival

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Started re-watching the anime, and good lady does it feel good to hear Crossing Field again. Got to episode 7 and had a stupid idea for Yui. I was gonna save ALO for later, but frick it, I can't pass this up. I'm writing this first. 
> 
> No, I'm not going to name every chapter based on a timeframe. I'll let you guys come to your own conclusions about how long it's been since the last chapter.

"Good morning, Yui."

Well, morning on a technicality; lunch break at the SAO survivor's school started five minutes before noon. Kazuto, Asuna, Rika, and Keiko had all gathered outside, and Kazuto called Yui with a minute to spare; the status told them she was logged out, but took a moment before Yui replied with a tired murmur. _"...Morning, Papa."_

Asuna giggled. "How late were you logged in last night?" she asked.

 _"Mama?"_ Yui sounded awkward as she replied. _"I logged out around 11. Papa said as long as I wasn't in SAO-K past midnight, it was okay."_

"Oh, did he now," Rika mused, turning to Kazuto.

"Hey," Kazuto defended, "I've never been late for school when I'm in bed before 1 in the morning."

Keiko hummed as though considering whether or not to argue before turning back to the call. "That sounds a little more tired than 'logged out around 11'," she accused.

 _"I did!"_ Yui insisted. _"But..."_ She trailed off. _"I was up a little later doing some stuff with my player account, and wasn't really paying attention to the time."_

Kazuto narrowed his gaze. "Like...?"

 _"...Trying to enter the game without logging in,"_ Yui admitted.

"That's not going to happen," Kazuto insisted. "The patch I made to make your player account is integrated into SAO-K. It'll recognize you as a player when you appear in the game, regardless of whether you log in or not. I don't think you _could_ enter into a Seed-made game unless it has a specific way to recognize you." He smiled. "That being said, we do have some good news."

_"Papa?"_

Asuna giggled. "We were checking the update history for ALfheim Online," she explained. "It's been using the Seed's version of Cardinal almost since the incident with Excalibur. Which means..."

"It'll be compatible with the player account I designed for you," Kazuto finished, "and you can be a player in ALO, too."

_"...Oh."_

Yui's subdued reaction had everyone exchanging glances. "Something wrong?"

 _"No, it's okay,"_ Yui insisted. _"I'm just... tired. That's great. It's gonna be fun fighting with you guys."_ She yawned into the line. _"I'm gonna get a little more sleep. See you when you get home, Papa."_

The call ended, and Kazuto lowered his phone.

"That... wasn't just her being tired," Keiko mused. "Why wouldn't she be excited about being a player?" She turned to Asuna. "You said she's been in SAO-K every day since launch."

"She has," Asuna confirmed. "I don't know what this is all of a sudden."

Kazuto hummed. "Maybe let's not invite her to jump to ALO as soon as class is out," he admitted. "I'll talk to her when I get home."

* * *

After school, Kazuto and Suguha had a quick exchange in regards to his findings about ALO - and Yui's reaction. Suguha decided to head to ALO ahead and see what she could find for equipment at Yui's level in the meantime, and the two went their separate ways for now.

He was about to start up his computer for a chat before he thought to check on Yui. The decision proved wise when he saw her status: Sword Art Online - K [beta]. With a sigh, he picked up his AmuSphere and laid down in bed.

"Link start."

* * *

Yui was in the church in the Town of Beginnings - the one which, in the original SAO, had been repurposed as an orphanage of sorts for the younger players. Kirito stepped up to the front door and was concerned to find it locked; with a sigh, he knocked on the door.

No response.

"Yui, I know you're in there," Kirito insisted. "Open up."

Quiet.

"Don't make me open my GM privileges, Yui," Kirito pleaded.

When the silence continued, Kirito sighed, stepping back.

"System login. ID: Heathcliff."

A small box opened in front of him, rapidly filling with his login information, and then a sequence of administrator menus opened around him, black in contrast to the white of player-availabilities. Kazuto didn't _like_ having GM privileges; he'd programmed Heathcliff's account into SAO-K so that he could log in as Kirito without having them. He quickly touched the keyhole of the church's door, causing a black menu to appear next to it; he quickly tapped to unlock it, and as a _click_ emerged from the keyhole, the door swung open.

"System login. ID: Kirito."

The administrator menus vanished as he logged out of the GM account, and Kirito stepped inside. Zooming in on his map revealed her lack of response wasn't any deliberate attempt to hide from him; Yui was in one of the back rooms of the church, with a sizeable amount of space and more than a few walls between her and the front door. Kirito stepped in to find her comparing armour sets in front of a mirror.

"I hope you got all of those legitimately," Kirito accused.

Yui yelped, turning around. "Papa! How did you-?"

"So you did lock the door on purpose," he mused. "Were you just trying to hide this?"

"I..." Yui turned bright red. "I was just trying to find something that looked good, I was gonna get rid of it all when I was done."

Kirito shook his head. "SAO-K is just a beta to help you get comfortable as a player," he insisted. "But I don't want you fooling around with the GM privileges before you transfer to a different game."

Yui's face fell, and Kirito stepped into the room. "That being said... you sound like you're not exactly excited about joining us in ALO."

"I-I am," Yui insisted. "Really, I want to be able to fight with you and Mama and everyone. But..." She closed her hands before her. "If I do transfer to ALfheim Online, and I can be a player with you guys... Can I still choose to be a Navi-Pixie later?"

A small smile rose on Kirito's face. "That's what you're worried about?"

Yui looked up to him. "ALfheim Online only lets you have a party of seven," she insisted. "If there's more than seven of us, we have to go in two parties - or one of us solo! That'll make everything harder if we try to-"

"Yes," Kirito interrupted, "you can still choose to be a Navi-Pixie."

His comment caught Yui off-guard. "Really?"

Kirito nodded, stepping towards a small chair in the room. "I told you, the patch that made your player account is part of SAO-K." He sat down with a stretch of his arms. "For any other game, you have to manually log in if you want to be a player. Most other games will just reject you if you try to access them otherwise - but because ALO has already recognized you as a Navi-Pixie, if you don't log in as a player, it'll keep that recognition."

Yui sighed. "Now I feel silly for being worried."

"It's my own fault," Kirito insisted. "I should have told you that in advance." He shook his head. "So," he mused, "you decided what race you're gonna pick?"

"I don't know, Papa," Yui admitted, opening her menu. "On one hand, I wanna pick an Undine like Mama. Her and Leafa are the only ones with healing magic. But on the other hand, maybe a Spriggan like you would go better with my weapon choices."

Kirito raised an eyebrow as she changed to a less consuming armour set, revealing the five daggers strapped to her torso. "You like the knife-throwing act you and Sinon came up with?"

Yui giggled. "A little. The monsters from Sword Art Online don't handle long-range damage that well."

"The ones in ALO are designed to fight characters with bows," Kirito pointed out, "I don't think it'll help you there." Then, before Yui could retort; "Maybe you can call your Mama and see what she thinks." He opened his menu; "If you pick a Spriggan, I'll be there to meet you when you log in."

"Okay, Papa."

* * *

After some discussion, Yui did end up arriving in ALO as a Spriggan - to Kirito's admitted joy. He and Asuna ended up purchasing a few of the highest-end daggers that Yui's stats allowed for her to use, and Leafa had a surprise for her as well; once they'd geared her up, the four of them spent some time fighting mobs in Sylph territory.

The next day, Kirito and Yui made their way to Lisbeth's Smith Shop.

"Spriggans are useless in battle, they say," Lisbeth remarked as Yui stepped inside. "He couldn't contribute much to your questing, they say. I don't know why you let _that_ guy take Excalibur from that quest, they say."

"The races are well-balanced," Yui insisted, "it's all about how well you use them."

"You got that right," Lisbeth agreed. Her expression became one of disdain as she took note of the plethora of daggers covering Yui's body. "All the weapons you tried in SAO-K," she mused, "and you settled on six knives to throw?"

Yui shook her head. "Only five to throw," she insisted, drawing the best one she had. "Leafa got this from a monster drop; she said I should only throw store-bought weapons, and get used to close combat with a good-quality dagger or two."

Lisbeth smirked. "Smart choice," she admitted. "If you get into a fight with another player, they're not gonna fall for-" She cut herself off and double-took. "Wait, what do you mean _or two?_ "

"Um..." Yui giggled lightly, setting her free hand on the back of her head. "I wanna see if I can pull off Papa's Skill Connect. And to do that..."

"You need a weapon equal or better to your primary one," Lisbeth muttered, glancing at Kirito accusingly.

Kirito raised his hands in defense. "I had nothing to do with this decision," he insisted. "I told her it was a bad idea."

With a sigh, Lisbeth shook her head. "Let me see your skill stats," she insisted. "ALO has stricter equipment conditions than SAO did, you can't just equip a weapon as long as you have it." After a look at Yui's listing, Lisbeth picked out a dagger with a sizeable blade. "Here, this is probably the best weapon I have for your skill level."

Yui accepted it curiously. "Is this a dagger, or a one-handed sword?" she wondered aloud. "I mean..." She drew her good weapon, comparing them in hand. "It's lighter, but the blade is so much longer."

"It's not that long," Lisbeth insisted. "I think you've been biased, hanging out on the first floor of the _old_ Aincrad."

"Still," Yui insisted, "I don't know if this is..." She held the weapon drop Leafa had given her at arm's length and drew Lisbeth's dagger back at her side.

Lisbeth started as a sword skill lit up around the longer weapon. "Wait," she insisted, "you shouldn't test it on the monster drop! You're not likely to get another one!"

Yui shook her head. "I just wanna see... how it works for-"

She made to move the player-made dagger, and the two blades sang as the sword skill directed her to thrust forward and then draw it right back. The lag for such a low-level skill was almost non-existent, and Yui twisted the monster-dropped dagger from side to side. "I thought so," she mused. "I can't use two weapons when one's of this size, or I'm going to-"

Her gaze fell to Lisbeth's dagger, and she cut herself off with an "Oh" as she raised that one before her; the blade was divided lengthwise, the cut extending into the hilt and almost straight to where her hand was wrapped around the grip.

Lisbeth screamed, seizing the dagger out of Yui's hand and holding it in front of her desperately; yet the weapon was already starting to fade out as she beheld it. "No, no no no no no no..."

The dagger shattered in her grip, leaving her grasping at fragments as they faded out.

Yui gave an awkward chuckle. "Sorry?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Using Kazuto's name was easy while I was writing Difference, but after a few episodes of watching the anime I keep trying to write Kirito in the narration even outside of VR.
> 
> Also, shamelessly jumping the gun on my monthly pattern because I really wanted to update something on 2020-02-02. You might get a bonus of two chapters in February.


	4. ALO: Floor Clear

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Got to the last episode of Aincrad - just the START of the last episode of Aincrad, I haven't even gotten past the intro sequence after the Skull Reaper goes down. Visuals of the Skull Reaper fight + remembering later events for ALfheim + just coming off a borderline speedrun of Kingdom Hearts III = a wonderful idea for a chapter with Yui. I seriously started this chapter the day after I got the last one up.
> 
> So, the update at the start of Mother's Rosario was that Floors 21-30 opened in New Aincrad during a Christmas Eve update. The Sleeping Knights got their names on the monument for 27. By the end of the arc, I don't think they made it past Floor 28. The anime didn't give us this particular detail, but I'm assuming that the Floor 20 boss was unavailable until Floor 21 was cleared. Mostly because I love the idea of all the Leeroys in ALO going for the boss as soon as it was available, finding themselves joined by the guys who got Excalibur, and then discovering that crew beating them to the Floor 21 dungeon.

"She's still in ALO?"

Asuna's comment as she typed a message for Yui had Shino sighing. "Good night," she muttered. "She's really relishing in being a player, isn't she?"

"The last couple times I've logged in," Asuna observed, "she's been in level-grinding areas. I think she's getting close to our level by now."

"Already?" Shino mused. "Talk about your rapid growth."

"I'm not complaining," Asuna insisted. "By this rate, she'll be able to participate in the next raid before- Ah!" Yui's status quickly changed from ALfheim Online to Logged Out. "There we go."

She hit Call and set her phone on speaker as Yui answered. _"Good afternoon, Mama!"_

"Afternoon, Yui," Asuna greeted. "How well have you been doing in ALO?"

 _"Mmm... I wanna surprise you when you log in,"_ Yui decided. _"Why did you want me to log out?"_

"Agil had news for us," Asuna explained. "We're just waiting for your Papa to-" She fell quiet as the cafe door opened, and she and Shino turned to see Kazuto and Suguha stepping in. "Oh, Kirito!"

"Sorry we're late," Kazuto insisted.

"About time!" Ryoutarou mused. "We were about to tell Agil to tell us what he knew without you!"

Suguha sat down at the end of the bar. "So, what's the news?" she asked.

"It's about ALfheim Online," Andrew replied. "There's a new update planned for a week from now. They're opening Floors 31-40 in New Aincrad, and introducing a sizeable number of weapons in the process."

"That means the Floor 30 boss will be available," Keiko observed.

"Is it just me," Suguha mused, "or have they been kind of holding off on this one?"

Yui hummed. _"But... the last few updates have seen new monsters in the rest of ALfheim with more advanced attack patterns,"_ she observed. _"It's possible they were waiting to unlock the next few floors in Aincrad because they were testing concepts for the new floor bosses."_

"I wouldn't rule it out," Andrew agreed. "The Floor 30 clear is a raid I don't want to miss."

* * *

When Yui logged back in to ALO later that day, it didn't take long before Kirito and Asuna joined her.

"You're definitely making progress," Asuna admitted as she got a look at Yui's stats. "I'm proud of you, Yui."

Kirito crossed his arms. "So," he mused, "you want to join the next boss raid as a player, or as a Navi-Pixie?"

Yui hummed. "I think I wanna be a player this time," she admitted. "If I'm strong enough..."

Asuna nodded. "You're definitely strong enough by now," she assured her.

"That being said," Kirito asked, "how are your sword skills coming along?"

"I've been practicing with Silica," Yui explained. "She even gave me some weak Original Sword Skills so I can try Skill Connecting."

"And how well has that been going?" Kirito asked.

Yui turned red. "Not so well," she admitted.

"I warned you it was tricky," Kirito mused.

"Don't be rude!" Asuna reprimanded.

"It's okay," Yui insisted. "I actually came up with a couple ideas while I was trying."

Asuna and Kirito both started at that. "Care to show us?"

* * *

" _Whaaat!?_ "

When Silica and Yui met up on the 20th Floor for their knife-fighting practice, the beast tamer was astonished to hear what Yui had accomplished. "You managed to make an OSS with _knife throwing?_ "

Yui giggled. "You want me to show you?"

"Yes, show me!" Silica insisted.

Pina gave a cry of agreement.

Their sparring grounds were at the edge of the Sunshine Forest - close enough that the field enemies tended to avoid it, but outside of the spawn areas of most forest enemies. With a sigh, Yui started to draw her knives, seizing two in her right hand and three in her left, turning towards the trees.

Silica started. "You did it with all five?!"

"Just my best one," Yui confirmed. "Watch this..."

She took a ready stance with the knives in her left hand held before her and the ones in her right being held back. After a moment, the sword skill started to light up around all five, and Silica watched as Yui moved.

Her right hand swung forward, and one knife was flung, tip-first. The moment it was in motion, Yui brought her left hand in, throwing one knife from that hand, and then swept it out to throw another. Her right hand came forward to throw the second dagger from that hand, and then the third from her left hand was hurled forward in an overhand swing.

All the blades were in the air before the first one had connected with the tree she was aiming at; as it connected, Silica was dumbfounded to watch it _bounce back_ in a high overhead arc, tumbling edge over handle. The glow of the sword skill didn't fade until it was already returning. Her mouth fell open as the others struck as well, each bouncing back on a slightly different trajectory. Yui yelped as the post-motion delay kicked in; the first and second ones hit the ground at her feet before she was able to recover, and she stepped back, narrowly avoiding the third and fourth before catching the fifth dagger between two hands.

"Wha... Whaaa..." Silica shook her head. "What what _what was that!?_ "

Yui giggled awkwardly, glancing down at the fallen ones. "Maybe I shouldn't have hit confirm after I had to dodge half of them."

Silica shook her head. "You made them _bounce back!?_ " she yelped.

"Not on purpose!" Yui insisted. "I did it in a safe zone where all the buildings were immortal objects, so they didn't penetrate. I didn't think it'd take the bounces as part of the sword skill."

"That's..." Silica giggled. "You had them bounce back at you and hit _confirm?_ " she laughed. "You're lucky they didn't hit you before you could move again!"

"I didn't know it was going to save that!"

* * *

Everyone camped out in the 30th floor dungeon for the day the boss was available; as soon as the update registered, the group logged in. Klein had brought most of Furin Kazan for the raid, and Leafa had invited Recon; Agil decided to party with them, Silica, Lisbeth, and Sinon, while Kirito and Asuna formed a three-player with Yui.

"You sure you want me to be the party leader?" Yui asked.

"Definitely," Kirito insisted. "If we can beat this with just us, you deserve to have your name on the Monument."

"Hey," Agil called, drawing everyone's attention. "We're all set. Are we gonna wait for more to show up, or do we take this on ourselves?"

Asuna glanced at Yui, who gave an affirming nod, before turning to the others. "We'll give it a try," she insisted. "Let's go."

They started towards the boss room, with Kirito tapping at his menu. Klein double-took when he saw the crossed swords on Kirito's back, and promptly closed the distance to speak with him. "Hey, Kirito," he mused, "what's with the gear?"

"Hm? Oh..." Kirito reached for his left-hand sword. "I've been remaking some dual-wielding sword skills as OSSes," he admitted, "but I'm having trouble with Starburst Stream. Yui thinks maybe I'm just getting out of practice."

Klein hummed suspiciously. "But you're not using Excalibur?"

"Excalibur is freaking heavy!" Kirito insisted. "I'm not gonna pull off a 16-hit combo with _that thing_ without the system assist, practice or no practice!"

With a chuckle, Klein shook his head. "If you say so," he mused.

They reached the room before long; Yui glanced back at everyone for a moment before setting her hand on the panel next to the entrance.

The doors swung open, prompting the three of them to step inside at the fore of the raid group. The boss room was imposing enough, a long rectangular hall with several stone squares embedded in the ground; as the others stepped in and the door closed behind them, Asuna felt the ground shift under her feet and glanced down to find she was leaving prominent footprints.

"It's soft," she murmured. "Dirt?"

She started to advance further - and Yui held her hand out in the way. "Mama, wait."

Asuna turned to her. "What is it?"

Yui looked upward in response, and everyone's gaze shifted up to follow.

Hanging from the ceiling, on a rig that looked like it should have been holding a chandelier, was a large orb of black crystal. At least, so it seemed at first; then it illuminated, a bloody red that changed the hue of the entire room. The chains suspending it abruptly shattered at the connections, and it started to drift downward until it was about a meter above head level of Agil; a pulse of red emerged horizontal around it, extending outward until it vanished into the walls.

Its name appeared above it: Demon Core

"There's no HP bars," Recon realized, reaching for his knife. "What's this about?"

The dirt began to shift, drawing Yui's attention; she seized her good knives as skeletal hands began to burst out. "Enemies!" she realized. "But... they don't have mob IDs!"

"It's a horde," Sinon realized. "That thing is... just a controller!"

"No wonder it took them so long to make the update," Asuna realized. "The boss room needed to be reconfigured for something like this. We can't win unless we take them _all_ out!"

Skeletal figures emerged from the earth; humanoid bones, save for the wings. Each had a weapon in its grasp, of the same types as players could equip - and each manifested a single HP bar.

Yui shifted her grip on her daggers before charging towards the nearest one, brandishing a sword and shield. It swung the blade down towards her, and Yui sidestepped it quickly before striking its sword arm with one knife and then bringing the other down on its skull. The HP bar was depleted quite rapidly, and Asuna dashed up and finished it off with a thrust to the shield arm, causing it to fade out and shatter.

Another with a polearm made to attack Yui from the side; Kirito stopped its attack on one sword before bringing the other into an upward swing that knocked its skull clean off. Silica and Lisbeth charged at one with a bow aiming at Asuna from behind, Lisbeth disarming it with her mace before Silica struck it with rapid strikes from her dagger; Agil dashed between mother and daughter with his axe raised, bring it down on a figure with a two-handed sword; when that was just barely not enough to finish it off, Sinon sniped it from the side.

Kirito turned his swords on the next enemy to come at him, only to find it was holding a sizeable axe that was able to deflect his blows without a sword skill; Leafa promptly sped forward before it could counterattack, slashing across its spine and getting its attention long enough for Recon to finish it off with a one-two swing. A swarm of skeletons with knives made to get the two Sylphs while they had their backs turned, only for Asuna to get their attention with a rush of thrusts; no sooner had they started to turn towards her than Yui and Kirito rushed in on opposing ends, bombarding the enemies with their swings.

The Demon Core had been largely motionless during the group's onslaught, only bobbing up and down faintly; yet now it started to shine again, and another pulse emerged from it. Sinon, Lisbeth, and Silica had just managed to take out a quartet as it pulsed - but when wave passed them, everyone started. Sinon was the one with the foresight to look down, and she saw the dirt of the battlefield starting to stir.

"No, get back!"

Yui yelped as a hand closed around her ankle; Asuna promptly stabbed the skeleton's arm to make it release her, and the group of fairies quickly retreated towards the entrance as new skeletons emerged from the dirt around them.

"What the hell it this?" Klein yelped.

"They just keep spawning?" Agil growled.

"Their individual stats aren't very high," Yui realized, "but there are so many-"

She cut herself off with a yelp of terror as she realized from whence this situation was familiar. Kirito and Leafa both turned to her in shock, and Recon recoiled with a scream, almost dropping his knife.

Asuna turned towards the horde. "They wouldn't make it impossible..."

Yui raised her gaze to the hovering sphere. _Wait, if the skeletons don't have mob IDs... and the core doesn't-!_ "Sinon!" she yelled. "Shoot the core!"

Sinon turned to her. "But there's no-!"

"Do it!"

With a scoff, Sinon nocked an arrow, taking aim at the floating sphere - then, as the new skeletons started to charge again, she let it fly.

The moment the arrow collided, there was an audible crack, like something breaking; yet the core didn't react. The skeletons, on the other hand, did; their HP bars vanished - not depleted, but simply _not there anymore_ \- and each tumbled to the ground, its bones falling apart. No one dared to approach them as the skulls rolled.

They didn't slow down... and then the ribs began to roll after them.

Weapons were raised once again as the scattered skeletons started to gather towards the core. The skulls, first to arrive, started to rise off the ground, swirling around the core threateningly like armour; as the rest of the bones started to do the same, HP bars began to appear at the side of the formation, a total of four.

The first one was almost empty - consequent of the skeletons they'd already struck down.

Asuna smiled. "Good call, Yui," she praised.

"It's not over yet," Yui warned.

"No," Kirito admitted, "but we know where the finish line is, now."

The bones continued to swirl around the core like a tower; after a moment, it twisted, lunging towards Yui at the fore of the group. She leapt away quickly as it hit the ground; Kirito and Asuna scissored it from the sides, striking the core in the center of the tower. Yui only landed an instant before she lunged forward, striking it with rapid swings before the tower managed to reorient; Recon and Silica used the opening to strike it rapidly from the opposite side, their daggers slipping between the bones before they moved away. Lisbeth and Agil promptly rushed it in parallel, striking both sides as they passed, then landing and leaping apart.

No sooner had they done so than the tower started to twist into the air, retreating to the far end of the battlefield before landing again; Sinon promptly fired another arrow at it, this one impaling the core and then causing ice to burst out around the impact. Klein saw it coming back and moved his katana forward, bringing it up in a skyward blow that raised flames in its wake in an effort to keep the tower at a certain distance; when the tower seemed to hesitate, the rest of Furin Kazan rushed it from all directions, bombarding it with sword skills in an effort to knock it down.

As their post-motion delays kicked in, the tower seemed to _expand_ , the bones sending the guild flying as the core in the center made to withdraw. Everyone else leapt away, though they weren't able to avoid a few glancing blows; the core came to a stop in the center of the room, and the tower reconverged on it. Leafa closed the distance first, bringing her sword into a flurry of harsh swings; the instant it started to twist in an attempt to strike her, she made to move aside, only for it to close in on her and fling her back.

The Demon Core's HP was down to one bar and a sliver by now; Yui sheathed her good daggers and drew the other five, stepping forward.

"Mama, Papa, on my signal!"

Asuna and Kirito nodded. "Right!"

"Huh?" Agil turned to them. "What are you-?"

Yui held the three before her and drew back the two, and her weapons lit up as her sword skill started. When the tower of skulls started to advance towards them again, she let them fly; one, one-two, two, three. The daggers crossed the room to the boss, striking it in rapid succession and then bouncing back towards her. The post-motion delay stopped her from catching the first two, but as soon as she had mobility she grabbed the third, hopped over the fourth, and seized the fifth.

The tower started to twist, meaning to home in on her, and Yui yelled, "Now!"

Kirito and Asuna promptly met up before her; Kirito crossed his dual blades, and Asuna braced her rapier across them.

And all three of their swords lit up with the same glow.

As soon as the bones made contact, their weapons moved; Asuna swept her rapier in a forward thrust, and Kirito swept his blades down in a cross-slash. As the tower recoiled, Kirito brought both swords up in parallel, leaping into the air - and as he did, Asuna lunged forward, advancing in a balestra as her rapier connected with the demon sphere. The boss made to retreat as Kirito's leap peaked, but he promptly twisted into a flip, his fall directed forward as he bought the swords down in a converging cross; he landed on one knee before Asuna, and she used his back as a footstool before leaping into the air with an ascending thrust.

The boss' HP was down to a sliver; as Asuna descended in post-motion, Yui hurled the two knives in her hands, causing them to strike the core for its last dozen HP.

The formation of bones came to an abrupt halt; at random, the bones started to shine, shimmer, and shatter, each not a moment from the last, bursting like fireworks. Once there was nothing left but the skulls, they separated from the core - and as one, they too illuminated, wavered, and broke apart.

Congratulations!

Yui smiled, leaping into the air with a cheer - and everyone else joined in, yelling their own excitement as the victory screens appeared.

"Way to go, Yui!" Recon cheered. "Talk about all the best calls!"

"No kidding," Sinon admitted. "I never would've thought to go for something that didn't have an HP gauge from so close."

"I-I just took a guess," Yui insisted. "I wasn't-"

"No need to be shy, Yui," Agil insisted. "Just being a guess doesn't mean you don't deserve the credit."

Klein chuckled in approval before his attention turned to Kirito and Asuna, who were approaching with approving smiles. "Anyways, what was that just now?"

Kirito glanced at him. "Do I have to say?"

"Of course!" Klein insisted, sheathing his katana. "I've never seen anything like that before!"

With a sigh, Kirito sheathed his swords. "An Outside System Skill," he explained. "Cooperative Sword Skills."

"Co-Cooperative...?"

Lisbeth, Silica, Leafa, Sinon, Asuna, and Yui all traded glances and found themselves laughing at the familiar scene.

"You know how you have to assign a pre-motion activation pose to your OSS, right?" Kirito asked. "Yui figured out that if you're making contact with someone else during the activation pose, and they're already in pre-motion themselves, the sword skills account for both of you. Which means if you coordinate your skills accordingly..."

"It lets you perform them in synchronization," Yui finished. "Mama and Papa spent all week since the announcement trying to get this right."

"Y-Yui!" Asuna protested. "You didn't need to tell them that part!"

"Cooperative Sword Skills, huh?" Recon echoed. "That sounds way harder than it looked." He turned to Asuna. "You guys made that look easy."

"Only because we already have it saved as an OSS," Asuna insisted. "You should have seen the failed landings."

Silica's confused hum drew everyone's attention to find her looking at the victory screen. "What's with all these weapons?"

"Huh?" Leafa glanced at her own display. "Wait, _what?_ "

"That one must have had a different drop algorithm," Yui mused. "We all took out at least one of the smaller skeletons, right?"

"So... what, it gave us all an even split?" Leafa wondered.

"I don't know about even," Silica admitted. "Look at the names."

Recon turned to his screen. " _Old Sword_ , _Worn Mace_..." He slumped as he realized what she was seeing. "It's a bunch of broken stuff?"

Asuna closed the victory screen and opened her menu, bringing up the stats for a _Rusted Dagger_. "They're pretty weak," she mused. "Maybe they're meant as cheap items to be sold to NPCs or something?"

Lisbeth grinned. "Oh, I wouldn't go and throw them away so soon," she insisted.

"Huh?"

"You're friends with a blacksmith," Lisbeth retorted, "and you're assuming that something **used** can't be **fixed**?" She set her hands on her hips defiantly. "Give me a day to take a good look at this stuff. Maybe I can make them into weapons worth wielding. If nothing else, I can break them all down for parts."

Kirito chuckled. "Always the opportunist," he mused. "What, are you gonna charge us ten thousand Yuld to refurbish each weapon?"

"Hey!"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For some reason, my chapter publication dates keep defaulting to Christmas Eve of 2019. I guess that's what happens when you start something intending for it to be a oneshot and then turn it into a multi-chapter work. It makes things easier for my monthly update rate, though.


	5. ALO: Brimstone

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Bonus indeed! I have no patience to wait before I write, so I'm just gonna write whatever chapter ideas come to me and submit anything I've got complete when a 24th comes. So in February, you get three chapters - one for my stupid 20200202, and two for the 24th.

_Knock knock knock_

Yui turned towards the door at the sudden arrival. It only took a moment before Klein's voice could be heard coming in. "Hey, Kiri-dude! Anyone home?"

"Just a second!" Yui insisted. She quickly closed her menu and hurried to the door, pulling it open to find Klein standing there.

"Oh, hey, Yui," Klein greeted. "You on your own?"

"Mhm," Yui confirmed. "Papa and Mama haven't logged in yet today."

Klein leaned his head back. "Ah, crap..." He caught his hand behind his head. "See, I discovered a bit of a problem and wanted to talk to Kirito. Can I come in?"

"Of course." Yui stepped aside and let Klein step inside before closing the door behind him.

They took their seats in the living room. "So," Klein explained, "remember when we went after Excalibur, and we made a deal about the questing?"

"Papa told me about that," Yui confirmed. "He said you'd join us in Jotunheim if Papa helped you get the legendary katana."

Klein nodded. "Yeah," he confirmed. "But Kagutsuchi's in a pretty hot place, and I've kind of been putting it off. The thing is..." He scratched the back of his head. "I did some asking around about where exactly we gotta look. And it turns out, the area of the dungeon I'm looking at doesn't exactly do... parties."

Yui blinked. "Huh?"

"Me and the guys in Furin Kazan tried to get inside," he explained, "and it turns out the entrance to the part where the quest is supposed to be... just straight-out isn't there if you're in an active party with someone. The only way to get in is to go in solo. So I was gonna let Kirito out of the deal, since there's no real way for him to live up to it and it's not really fair for me to just lord it over him."

"It doesn't let parties in?" Yui mused. "But quests of that level are never easy enough to do solo." She set a hand on her chin.

Klein raised his hands. "Hey, I just wanted to tell him what I found," he insisted. "No need to-"

"Can you show me?"

Yui's question had Klein starting. "Wait, what?"

"Take me to the dungeon where it is," Yui requested. "I want to see if I can figure out what the quest is like. Maybe Papa can help you after all."

"O...kay," Klein insisted. "If you say so."

* * *

The dungeon was a cavern leading into a volcano at the edge of Salamander territory, and it was indeed pretty hot; Klein expressed surprise that it wasn't causing HP damage, only for Yui to inform him that wasn't quite how ALO worked. Fighting just the two of them was not a simple matter (Yui was glad she'd invested in some low-level healing spells and a _lot_ of MP potions); and before long, Klein halted their progress.

"Well," he mused, "this is the place."

He turned to the empty wall on his left; Yui followed his gaze curiously. "Hm..."

"Nothing there, right?" Klein mused. He opened his menu. "But when I split the party like this..."

His name and HP bar vanished from Yui's HUD - and when she blinked, there was a large gap in the wall before her. "Oh!"

Klein nodded. "Yeah, there it is." He shook his head. "I don't know why it doesn't let parties in-"

"That's not an area of the dungeon," Yui interrupted.

"Huh?"

Yui stepped forward, setting her hand on the edge of the gap. "This is a connection portal," she explained. "What's on the other side of this access isn't part of the same map as this dungeon." She turned to Klein. "Remember the stairs to Jotunheim?"

Klein's jaw fell open. "Ah- Huh?" He shook his head. "You mean that wasn't part of the same map?"

"Mm-mm," Yui confirmed. "There are two versions of the stairs - one in the ALfheim map, and one in the Jotunheim map. All entities are duplicated between maps - one's real, while the other is just mirroring their actions. After the players have passed a certain point on the stairs in the ALfheim map, they're seamlessly transferred to their avatars reflected on the Jotunheim map. All the connections are made that way."

"Is that part of the Cardinal System?" Klein murmured.

Yui nodded. "It was part of the original design for Sword Art Online," she explained. "When you entered a dungeon, the first part of the dungeon would be replicated that way. It was designed that way because the maps for the higher floors were increasingly larger, even though the pillars dividing the floors in Aincrad were made at a constant size. But the size difference was really small, so between the beta test and the final release, Cardinal made the pillars larger and contained them properly within the pillars."

Klein was unimpressed. "Why didn't the devs just make the pillars larger to begin with?"

"Because there were 80 of them," Yui pointed out. "A really small difference duplicated often enough makes a more noticeable difference than you'd think." Her gaze fell. "Aincrad had some small structures connected to the bottom floor that could conceivably have been climbed on by a player careful enough. And with the circumstances of the death game, how do you think a beta tester would react to discovering that Aincrad was larger than he remembers?"

"...He'd think there's more than 100 floors," Klein murmured. "And that the whole 'clear the boss in the Ruby Palace, end the game' thing was just Kayaba lying. He'd worry that Aincrad would just keep extending into infinity until the servers crashed trying to store it all."

Yui nodded.

After a moment, Klein turned back to the cave. "So, what about ALfheim and Jotunheim?" he wondered. "Why didn't Cardinal make that into a solid connection?"

"I think that's because of the mythology," Yui replied. "ALfheim Online is based on Norse mythological entities. In the legends, Alfheim and Jotunheim are completely separate worlds. Jotunheim itself must have been added consciously by the developers instead of being created completely by Cardinal - that's why there's the illusion of it being one part. But Cardinal continues to treat it as separate." She turned to the gap in the cave wall. "Either this was a similar choice by the developers, or Cardinal used the instance of Jotunheim as precedence."

Klein sighed. "So, are we gonna go in and check it out, or...?"

"...I think so," Yui admitted. "It doesn't look like it's preventing multiple players from going through at once; it's just stopping them from noticing it in a party."

* * *

Rather than the long downward descent of the stairs to Jotunheim, this connection was merely a long forward walk through a tunnel that felt relatively cool. Klein wasn't sure, but he felt like he preferred the forward walk; one wrong step on a staircase could easily lead to tumbling, and although he wasn't sure about ALO, fall damage had definitely been a thing in SAO.

When they reached the opposite end, things heated up again.

The volcanic cave was hot, but only as ambience; in the majority of the dungeon, there was no lava flowing around. This place had no subtlety whatsoever; Yui and Klein came out and found themselves on a rather small platform of black stone that seemed to be floating in a _massive lake of lava_. More platforms formed stepping stones leading forward, towards a plain that seemed to be set ablaze.

"Uh... Yui..." Klein stumbled back. "When we were getting Excalibur... didn't you mention something about a place full of fire giants that were going to-"

"This isn't Muspelheim," Yui assured him. "The location ID is 'Helheim'."

Klein turned to her. "H-Helheim? Then, this place isn't going to threaten ALfheim like that Thyrm guy did?"

Yui shook her head. "It looks like Cardinal's handiwork, but it's not related to what was happening to Jotunheim. Helheim is supposed to be a land of the dead, where those killed dishonorably are left to suffer."

"O...kay," Klein mused. "Then why does it look like a different kind of underworld?"

"I think because it's a perception of suffering after death," Yui theorized. "Cardinal must have conflated the Norse depiction of Helheim with other afterlives like the Greek depiction of Hades or biblical hell." She turned to Klein. "Also... There's a timer counting down in the background. It started when we came out of the cave. I think it's a grace period before the quest triggers to get Kagutsuchi."

"Oh?" Klein glanced at the cave. "So..."

"Do you want to try it now?" Yui asked. "Or would you rather come back with Furin Kazan?"

Klein hummed for a moment before turning back. "Let's try it, you and me," he insisted. "Worst case scenario, we take a bit of a death penalty. I've got stats to spare."

Yui smiled. "Then let's party up now that we're through."

With a nod, Klein tapped through his menu to trigger the party invite... and promptly had a pop-up box appear at _him_ instead of Yui. "Huh? _Party is not available?_ "

"A party prevention zone?" Yui glanced around. "The timer's down to 20 seconds." She quickly opened her own menu, tapping quickly. "I'm gonna tell Mama not to interrupt us."

"Y-Yeah..."

Her timing was tight; no sooner had Yui hit send on the menu than a tremor seemed to rock Helheim. Yui drew her good daggers, and Klein reached for his katana, as a dark figure seemed to fade into the air above them. It was a giant woman, dressed in a long white dress, but ominous in every way - she seemed to be split in half vertically, with one half seeming to be diseased and rotted. When she spoke, even her voice seemed to be echoed twice over, one healthy and one weary.

"What are the fairies of ALfheim doing in my domain?" 

Klein's grip tightened on his weapon. "Y-Yui...?"

"She's like Urd," Yui confirmed. "She's an NPC connected to the Language Engine Module. And she doesn't have an HP gauge, which means she's not expected to be fought."

"O-okay..."

"Your kind are reduced to flame upon your death, from which you rise again," the NPC woman proclaimed. "Your kind have no place coming to my land, the land of Hel."

Klein took a deep breath before releasing his katana, raising his hands defensively. "We mean no trespass, my lady," he informed her. "We are only humble wanderers, seeking to explore."

The woman, Hel, narrowed her gaze. "Fairies exploring, come to Hel? Then you seek the edge of flame." She spread her hands ominously. "The fires of Kagutsuchi perpetuate throughout Helheim. I am not like to surrender it easily."

"Perhaps we can negotiate a bargain?" Klein inquired. "I'm sure there's something we can offer to a ruler like yourself?"

Yui glanced at Klein uncertainly. _Are you trying to make a deal with an NPC?_ Then, looking at Hel again. _Although, with Cardinal's handiwork, I guess it's not impossible..._

Hel grinned. "If you believe you can offer anything of equal value to Kagutsuchi, then come to my throne - in the far reaches of Hel."

Her body began to fade out - and before Klein and Yui appeared the proclamation Quest start!

With a sigh, Yui sheathed her daggers and turned to Klein. "Seriously?"

"Hey, Urd was answering our questions in Jotunheim," Klein defended.

* * *

Helheim didn't make the traversal easy; stepping stones across the molten lake that barely had room for one fairy, a maze composed of flames that only surged up when they got close, a tunnel placed high enough in the air that getting to it without flight was only barely possible with just two players, and an open field covered with weapons that glowed like they were part of active sword skills.

"You sure Kagutsuchi's not part of one of these?" Klein asked as they picked their way through the weapons.

"They're not player-attainable weapons," Yui insisted. "They're field elements, meant to cause damage if you touch them."

Klein sighed. "Maybe we should have gotten the whole band together first," he admitted. "It would've been nice to have Asuna backing us up with healing."

Yui turned to him. "Speaking of which," she mused, "if I help you get Kagutsuchi, that's Papa's side of the deal done."

With a chuckle, Klein raised his hands in surrender. "Hey, I was just gonna plain let him out of the deal if he couldn't help me," he reminded her. "I'm not gonna try and lord it over him."

When they reached the opposite end of the field, they found what seemed to be a large temple. Its doors were sealed, and covered in strange runes that looked like the scripture that appeared when spellcasting. As Klein stepped up to the door, a text box appeared before him, and one before Yui.

_Only those who do not fear death should make to stand before Hel._

Yui narrowed her gaze; then she dismissed the text box and turned to Klein, who nodded.

They each set a hand upon a door and pushed it open. The temple was rather spacious for fairies, but for a figure of Hel's size, it would be cozy at best. A throne of sorts sat against the far wall, only large enough to host a fairy; and upon its back was a sword with a crimson blade and a hilt like flame.

"That's Kagutsuchi," Yui realized.

Klein pursed his lips, looking around the temple. "Hey!" he called out. "Hel! We've come as you asked!"

The temple was flooded with darkness briefly; when it illuminated again, the throne was occupied - by a fairy-size version of the NPC from before.

Yui yelped.

"The fairies of ALfheim are bold indeed." Hel lifted her hands from the arms of her throne, joining them before her and propping her diseased leg upon the healthy one. "Only the worst among the dead deserve the far reaches of Hel, yet you come of your own free will - and mean to take the edge of flame."

Klein took a deep breath. "Are you sure that's the same NPC?" he asked Yui.

"Yes," Yui confirmed, "the ID is the same. She must have the ability to change her size. There's still no HP gauge."

With a nod, Klein stepped forward, prompting Yui to follow. "I'm not so callous as to try and take it by force," he insisted. "What can I offer you in return? Or is there something you want me to do first?"

Hel grinned. "Will you promise to do whatever I ask, so long as Kagutsuchi is your reward?" she demanded.

"Of course!" Klein assured her. "No samurai would ever offer his services and not intend to follow through."

"In that case..." She aimed one finger towards him threateningly. "Give me... your Remain Light."

Klein started. "What?"

"Fairies are reduced to flame, from which they are reborn," Hel proclaimed. "And so fairies never come to Hel. Give me your Remain Light, and I will give you Kagutsuchi."

"But I can't-"

Hel's gaze narrowed.

Klein quickly waved his hands in self-correction. "I-I just mean that I'm not capable!" he insisted. "Self-destruct magic is way way above my magic level, and you can't target yourself with a sword skill. I don't think you can cause damage to yourself without something to..."

"Hel," Yui interrupted, stepping forward. "If I promise you my Remain Light, and someone else depletes my HP, will you still accept it in return for Kagutsuchi?"

"Of course," Hel assured. "I only want the fire of your life; I care not what reduces you to flame."

With a nod, Yui turned to Klein. "Use your sword on me."

"Wha...?" Klein was dumbfounded. "Yui, are you sure?"

Yui nodded. "If she wants a Remain Light, I'll give it to her. And your damage output is higher compared to my HP."

"That's not what I..." He stepped up close and knelt down, whispering into Yui's ear. "Do you still feel player death the same way we do?" he asked awkwardly. "I don't want you to suffer too much if there's something different in the way you..."

Yui's gaze fell. To be fair, she experienced this world a bit more... thoroughly than an AmuSphere user. But the fundamental nature was no different than what the players went through. "It's fine," she promised Klein.

Klein sighed, standing up straight. "Okay," he insisted. "But no telling Kirito or Asuna about this."

He drew his katana, and Yui turned back to Hel. Taking a deep breath, Klein drew his weapon back until the sword skill lit up around it; then he brought the weapon down in a slash across Yui's back, and thrust it forward until the tip came out her chest. Yui winced as the flames surged up in the wake of the blow, her HP depleting quite quickly; Klein neglected to pull the sword out before the post-motion lag kicked in, and Yui started to shift on the blade, so that the friction of the edge would finish off her last bit of HP.

As her body started to illuminate, she pulled herself off the blade and knelt down - rolling something along the ground to Klein in the process.

Black flames wrapped her body, and it faded out as the flames rapidly condensed to a small black blaze that could be held in a fairy's palm. From Yui's perspective, that flame was merely at her core; her avatar had become insubstantial, but she could still look around and experience what was around her - and watch the ressurection timer counting down from 60.

Hel laughed threateningly, getting to her feet. "Foolish fairies of ALfheim!" she decried. "That you would offer even your own deaths in exchange for a prize you can no longer claim!" She seized the katana behind her and hurled it forward; it impaled itself through Yui's flame, causing her to flinch out of reflex even as it passed through her ineffectively. "Your Remain Lights only linger for a moment before you are dragged away from where you fall! You can have Kagutsuchi - if you can claim it before you can leave Hel entire!"

Klein picked up the item Yui had rolled to him - a World Tree Dewdrop - and popped the lid. "No taking that back later!" he warned her.

Hel started as Klein held the bottle forward and upturned it. The liquid dropped out of the bottle and landed upon Yui's Remain Light; with a sudden rush, the flame expanded in a twister, and in an instant Yui was standing there, with the katana impaled in the ground before her. She quickly reached forward, her finger making contact with the handle, and three buttons appeared next to it; her finger touched one of them, and the weapon vanished as a text box appeared before her.

QUEST BONUS: Kagutsuchi

A notice quickly popped up before Klein, and his face fell as he realized it read Quest failed. Yui quickly got to her feet as Hel began to fume. "You deceitful fairies!" she roared.

"You're one to talk!" Klein countered. "You promise the weapon to whoever dies in front of you, that's plenty deceitful yourself!"

Hel growled before her face contorted into a grin. "The flames of Kagutsuchi propagate across Helheim," she observed. "And my death giants are sworn to take action from the moment the flames subside. You will never escape Hel!"

"Klein," Yui warned, "run!"

"Y-Yeah!"

The two dashed out the doors of Hel's temple. The swords across the plain before the temple had ceased to glow; Yui directed Klein to avoid concerning himself with contact, taking barely single-digit HP damage as they dashed through the field. They were approaching the tunnel when a pair of figures approached that looked like they were armoured with brimstone; they were barely twice as tall as Agil, which raised some questions about how much they qualified to be 'giants'. As one got close enough to raise an axe intending to strike, the other seemed to slow down, as though fearful of being in the path of its swing - which meant Klein and Yui had plenty of room to weave out of the path of the descending axe and then dive into the tunnel.

"It gave me a quest fail notice," Klein murmured as they advanced through the tunnel to the fire maze. "Are you sure that's Kagutsuchi?"

"We're not in a party, remember?" Yui reprimanded. " _I_ haven't failed the quest. It's flagged to vanish from my inventory if the death giants finish me off. We have to get back to the volcano before it's safe!"

They came out to find the randomly-arriving flames were no more - instead, the maze had taken the solid form of several brick walls, and more death giants seemed to be patrolling inside. Yui led the way, leaping atop one of the walls and running along it; Klein made to follow suit and quickly stumbled.

Yui halted, turning back towards him as one of the death giants approached him. "Klein!"

"Get going!" Klein insisted. "I'm not the one who's gotta worry about losing!"

"...Okay!"

She turned and dashed back along the walls, heading towards what had once been the lake of lava. As she reached the edge of the maze, however, she realized it had solidified - and upon the surface where they had been, death giants were advancing from both sides. Yui leapt down and dashed forward as fast as her legs would take her; as the nearest giants made to approach, she dove into the tunnel leading back to ALfheim, landing with a roll and leaning against the wall in a panic.

Silence... silence...

Then the death giants turned and began to march away, and a notice appeared before her: Quest clear!

Yui breathed a sigh of relief as the quest rewards appeared before her. _We're in the clear._

It didn't take long for Klein to come out of the maze; he had a hand on his katana as he dashed through, not stopping until he was in the tunnel already. "What was that about?" he wondered. "It's like they just stopped doing anything all of a sudden."

"It happened when I got in here," Yui explained. "It looks like Helheim just stops becoming offensive territory. Cardinal will probably include some new quests in there later on."

The two of them started down the tunnel again. "I thought they disabled the full Cardinal system," he mused.

"That just means it can't completely create or destroy maps anymore," Yui explained. "Cardinal still automatically implements quests. But they won't have large-scale effects on ALfheim like the Thyrmheim quest." She opened her inventory and tapped to the new weapon. "Anyways, Klein..."

The katana manifested before her, now in a sheath, and she caught it in both hands and handed it to him. "A deal is a deal."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one seems a bit lengthier than the others. Maybe it's just excessive dialogue.


	6. ALO: Dwelling

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Ramble no longer relevant has been deleted]
> 
> So, last chapter was one half of Kirito's Excalibur debt repaid, let's settle the other half.

"Is that where the bow is supposed to be?"

Kirito, Asuna, Sinon, and Yui were following the border of the ALfheim region surrounding the World Tree - Sinon had finally uncovered enough information to make an effort at acquiring her legendary weapon, and had requested Kirito's accompaniment in case the associated quest happened to be one-and-done. Yui's question (she'd decided to accompany on this endeavour as a Navi-Pixie) came as they approached what seemed to be a **temple** nestled in the ridge of the mountains on the edge of Pooka territory.

Sinon nodded. "They say Shekinah is supposed to be inside," she admitted, "but no one's managed to get the door open."

The group descended before the temple; Asuna landed first, dashing up to the double-door before it and touching the join with one finger. "No prompts at contact," she observed as Kirito and Sinon landed; Yui hovered to a stop over Kirito's left shoulder while Asuna set her hands on the doors and pushed. "And there's no give," she observed. "It's definitely not a strength-based objective."

"Good," Kirito sighed. "I am not punching open another rock."

"They wouldn't-" Sinon double-took at Kirito for a moment before turning back to Asuna. "Given what Liz said about the popular conception of bows, I doubt they'd make the legendary bow the objective of a brute-force quest."

Asuna looked over the temple. "I wonder if this is supposed to be the endpoint of a quest, or something," she mused. "Maybe you have to escort an NPC here to get the doors open."

Sinon sighed. "Not an escort mission," she pleaded. "I hate trying to get a squishy bullet magnet from point A to point B without them doing something suicidal."

"Most Cardinal-based quests aren't that bad," Asuna admitted with a giggle, turning to face her.

"This is about a ranged weapon," Sinon insisted, "I have no faith that-"

"Yui?" Kirito's murmur drew their attention. "What's wrong?"

Yui turned to him. "Hm?"

"You're twitching," Kirito observed.

"You are," Sinon realized. "You're drifting left."

Yui glanced over herself, her wings were indeed twitching irregularly and rapidly, leaving her moving sideways. "Oh."

Kirito pinched her wings between his fingers to stop her from moving as Asuna stepped forward. "Something wrong, Yui?"

"There's a timer running in the background," Yui insisted. "But it keeps resetting. It's happening so many times I can't even tell what the maximum time is supposed to be."

"A timer?" Kirito asked, turning back to the temple. "So... something needs to happen for long enough in order for the door to open?"

"A time-based quest," Sinon sighed. "I picked the wrong day for this."

Asuna raised an eyebrow. "Something happening in GGO?"

"There's a countdown event happening in Glocken," Sinon admitted. "Something you want to try and be part of every so often, as many times as you can - and you keep getting better and better rewards for it the more often you're there. It's happening all through this week. The timeframe's large enough that I thought I'd at least be able to get a start on Shekinah first, but I don't want to try and keep track of two timers at once."

"I don't blame you on that one," Kirito sighed. "Let's hope no one else finds this out first."

He released Yui's wings, leaving her twitching left again before Asuna caught her. "Let's head back for now," she insisted, "and we'll try again next week."

"Sounds good," Kirito admitted. "Maybe we can try and get some intel in the meantime?"

"Sure," Sinon agreed. "If you manage to get the weapon before I'm done, I guess we'll be even."

"E-Even how?" Kirito asked.

"She did have her hands on Excalibur before you did," Asuna observed.

"Ah..."

With a giggle, Sinon rose up. "I think I'm just gonna grab an inn room in Arun," she admitted.

"Fair enough," Kirito conceded. "We'll keep you posted."

* * *

The next day, while Asuna and Kirito were at school, Yui found herself logging in as a player and soaring to the temple on her own. As she landed at the base of the steps, she noticed the timer starting - and rapidly resetting in the background again - her wings vanished, yet she found herself still twitching subconsciously as she looked over the temple.

 _What is this timer for?_ she wondered. _There's no writing or runes on the temple..._ She drew one dagger and hurled it at the doors, only for it to ricochet off as an Immortal Object notice popped up. _And it can't be something to inflict constant damage when the temple doesn't acknowledge damage inflicted._ She caught the weapon and sheathed it again. _What is it trying to count down?_

She opened her menu and started experimenting; lack of weapons, lack of armour, excessive armour, different types of weapons, setting things on the ground, even inflicting herself with different status ailments in the hopes that it would do something (and rapidly healing them after making sure each had done nothing). She started to regret that last one after managing to inflict herself with paralysis; having managed to avoid the status so far, she was unprepared for it to completely strip the strength from her limbs, leaving her falling to her knees and then faceplanting from that position.

As she started to move her arm towards her menu - with the shaky motions of any action under paralysis - she abruptly realized that the timer was counting down.

 _What? It's counting down the time I'm **paralyzed**?_ She managed to lift her head towards her menu, and the timer began to rapidly reset again. _No... but then what?_

She healed herself of the status and then sat up on her knees, looking at the temple. After a moment, she bowed her head, such that she could not see the temple - and the timer started counting down once more; then she looked up to it, and the resetting resumed. She looked up to the clouds until the temple was out of reach, but to no countdown; then she leaned forward and supported herself on her hands, face-down, and the timer began to count.

 _It's... recognizing a supplicational pose?_ Yui closed her eyes. _Okay, that's kind of mean, expecting someone to try and pray to get their hands on the bow. Not everyone who plays a VRMMO is a practitioner of worship. That's needlessly cruel._

Unpleasant images flashed in her mind, and she shook her head to dismiss them.

_...Maybe that's not too out of Cardinal's league._

The timer counted down sixty seconds; then she heard the grinding of stone, and raised her gaze to find the doors opening. Another timer started counting down, and this one didn't stop when she moved; realizing the door wouldn't be open forever, Yui quickly stepped in.

Shekinah was not inside - although there was something that looked to be an empty weapon stand, sitting on the floor of the temple. Surrounding it were five pedestals, upon each of which was a stone tablet covered in runes. Curious, she reached to pick one up - and a text box appeared before her with a _sizeable_ amount of text on it.

Only a glance was all Yui needed to see to realize that it was instructions of some sort.

 _Now that's a tricky quest,_ Yui realized. _I need to..._

She opened her menu to type a message without paying attention to the recipient, copying the contents of the text box and sending before moving to the next tablet. The timer was down to three seconds as she finished the fifth one; she had sent it and started out of the temple when it hit zero, and a sudden gale lifted her off her feet, throwing her out of the temple as the doors closed behind her.

The first timer took prominence as she landed - and quickly started resetting again. Yui found herself twitching until her wings appeared and she took off. No sooner had she started to fly towards New Aincrad than a message icon appeared; when she tapped, it, she discovered her own messages were the most recent.

The new one was from Asuna - or rather, Asuna's _cell phone_ , sent through the app Kirito had written - and asking her what the spam was about.

"...Oh."

* * *

"It's a series of riddles?"

Asuna gave an affirmative hum into the line. _"Yui copied them all while we were at school. It looks like we need to find certain items and bring them to that temple in order to make the bow manifest."_

Shino hummed, glancing at the clock; she had about ten minutes before she needed to be in Glocken for the countdown quest. "Do they look like they're going to be intensive, or is it a bunch of simple fetch quests?"

 _"We're not sure yet,"_ Asuna admitted. _"Yui's trying to decipher what they're all referring to before we get started. The last thing we want is to bring four of them there and have someone else swoop in with the fifth one and take the prize."_

"Yeah, no kidding," Shino agreed, having been the victim of an unpleasant few killsteals in GGO. "Let me know what the results are like."

_"Will do."_

* * *

When Kirito logged in the next day, he was somewhat surprised to find Yui surrounded by screens. Feeling unnecessarily mischievous, he stepped up behind the couch she was sitting on as quietly as he could, waiting until she ceased typing before speaking up.

"How's it coming?"

" _Gyah!_ " Yui whirled around as she screeched, the screens becoming a cyclone around her as she stumbled back before realizing who it was. "Papa!" she protested, "don't scare me like that!"

Kirito chuckled. "Sorry," he insisted, "but I thought you would've heard me log in." Yui pouted briefly, sitting back down as he asked again. "Made any progress with the riddle-solving?"

"Mhm," Yui confirmed. "Only part of the tablets are actually describing what they need. Here..." She touched one screen and swept it up with a spin, causing it to come to a stop eye level with Kirito and facing him.

_Bring to me the sole property of a beggar, molded from clay; that which may hold sustenance of the body, or pittance with which to purchase it.  
-Stone bowl_

"A... huh?" Kirito blinked. "How did you figure that out?"

"Monks who swear an oath of poverty are only allowed a single belonging," Yui explained. "A bowl, which can either hold money begged from passersby or a meal." She brought the screen back, and brought the next one up.

_Bring to me a branch of gold, a sign of legends come true; that which may herald riches untold and trials unforseen.  
-Magic staff_

"...As in, a staff that boosts your MAG stat?" Kirito asked.

"I think so," Yui admitted. "Lower-level staffs are based after tree branches. A player with powerful offensive magic could easily make a fortune off monsters." Kirito sent the screen back down as she raised the next one.

_Bring to me a robe like the mythical rat wears; that which will warm its wearer without ever allowing them to suffer a burn.  
-Fire-resistant cloth armour_

"That one makes sense," Kirito admitted. "If you're wearing armour with a higher fire resistance, you have to get closer and closer to a heat source before it starts dealing damage."

Yui had a smile on her face as he returned the screen. "I thought you might get that one yourself," she observed, "but I figured I should answer it anyways." She sent the next one up.

_Bring me the jewels of a dragon of storms, mistaken for the beautiful scales that surround its neck.  
-Metal ingot_

Kirito started. "They have those in ALO?" he observed.

Yui turned to him. "You're thinking of the one on Floor 55?" she asked.

"Yeah," Kirito admitted. "But... they haven't unlocked that floor in New Aincrad yet. Cardinal wouldn't implement something we can't access, would it?"

"I don't think so," Yui mused. "There must be similar dragons somewhere in ALfheim." Kirito sent the screen back, and Yui sent up the last one.

 _Bring me the body of a creature of the sea, as worn by a creature of the sky.  
_-???

"You haven't figured this one out, yet?" Kirito asked.

"No," Yui admitted. "The others have been pretty simple deductions, but this one doesn't make any sense that I can tell."

She brought the screen back, and the two of them stood in the living room, contemplating.

Abruptly, Kirito threw his head back. "Oh, no..."

Yui turned to him. "Did you think of something?" she asked.

"Yeah, but Sugu's not gonna like it..."

* * *

"No, no, _no no, **no, no, NO!**_ "

Kirito sighed. "Yeah, that's about what I expected."

"You are _not_ going to kill Tonky so Sinon can shoot things from farther away!" Leafa protested. She, Recon, Lisbeth, and Silica had joined Kirito, Asuna, and Yui in their planning for the Shekinah quest; although everyone had been less-than-pleased about Kirito's theory, Leafa was by far the most vocal about it.

Lisbeth sighed. "Even if we were going to- _I'm not saying we are!_ " she quickly interrupted herself as Leafa whirled around. " _Hypothetically speaking,_ even if we were to try and defeat Tonky to get the prize, I don't see how we **could**. The ones that did get finished off while Jotunheim was still an ice and snow zone were defeated with the help of Thyrm's giants. And Tonky was transformed compared to them. Which means we'd be facing a stronger enemy than before, without the help. There's no way we could handle that."

Silica hummed. "Urd said her people were called 'Hill Giants', right?"

"Yes," Yui confirmed, "why?"

"Why don't we ask around with item traders," Silica proposed, "and see if any of the people who did defeat Tonky's friends sold the drops they got? Monster drops tend to have the monster's name in them, so..."

"We could ask about any drops with 'Hill Giant' in the name," Recon finished. "That's not a bad idea. What about the others?"

"Dishware shouldn't be hard to come by," Asuna observed, "but a begging bowl has a bit of a different shape than food dishes. And the staff and armour... I wonder if it's talking about specific stuff. We'll have to do a lot of searching through the equipment shops."

"That just leaves the ingot," Kirito mused. "Heard of any dragons in ALfheim?"

Lisbeth grumbled. "...There's one place," she murmured. "In Leprechaun territory."

"Sounds like we should split up," Yui admitted. "I can help with the dragon."

"I'll talk to Agil about the Hill Giant drop," Silica proclaimed.

"I can recognize good dishware," Asuna insisted, "I'll start looking for the bowl."

"Then the rest of us are hunting for staves and cloth armour," Recon mused.

"Sinon owes us big time for this one," Leafa observed.

"Hey, this is me making it up to her," Kirito insisted, "you guys decided to tag along. I'm the one who owes you, if you're gonna insist on debts."

* * *

The rumoured dragon available in ALfheim resided deep in a mountain cave, just off the edge of the Leprechaun territory border. As Lisbeth and Yui landed, the smith spoke up. "So, can I ask you an awkward question?"

"Sure."

Lisbeth tried to phrase what she meant to ask. "Can you really _do_ anything, when you register as a Navi-Pixie... that you can't with your player account?"

Yui hummed. "Well, as a pixie, I get a direct feed to layout information," she explained. "And it's harder for me to do... more code-intensive things as a player." She shook her head. "Plus a pixie is nice and portable. When I just want to spend time with Mama and Papa, it's easier to ride in Papa's pocket."

"I suppose," Lisbeth admitted. "What about, like, moving things around you? Do you still have an inventory or anything?"

"Not an inventory," Yui admitted. "But most games that use the Seed allow players to carry items on their person. I can still hold things in my hands or put them in my pockets or such."

"I guess that makes sense," Lisbeth observed.

The cave wasn't terribly challenging, but it was quite deep. As the two of them stopped for a break, it was Yui's turn to ask a question. "Do you know what this dragon's supposed to be like, compared to the ones in Aincrad?"

Lisbeth nodded. "Someone said it started raining in the cave before the dragon showed up. I'm expecting electrical attacks instead of ice ones." She stretched her hands over her head. "Other than that, our main priority is finding out where the nest is so we can get the ingot."

"Speaking of lightning-" Yui started.

"You don't seriously think I should use Mjolnir?" Lisbeth argued.

"You use a hammer for smith work, don't you?" Yui asked.

"That's very different."

Yui shook her head. "It's not very different. Most skill levels are based on equipment type, not ability usage. A fishing skill, for example, is classified by the system as a 'fishing rod' skill, it just displays as 'fishing' in the menu. Or a cooking skill is classified as 'cookware' by the system."

"So you're saying I don't have a 'smith' skill," Lisbeth argued, "I have a 'smith hammer' skill?"

Yui nodded. "And the 'smith hammer' skill will be classified as a subset of the 'hammer' skill. So if you equip a hammer weapon, your progress with your smith skill should influence the stat on that." She glanced further in as Lisbeth tapped to her menu. "Besides, if it uses lightning attacks, Mjolnir should draw and nullify them."

Lisbeth's mace vanished as she turned to Yui, being replaced with the golden hammer. "...Should?"

"Come on," Yui prompted, getting to her feet. "If this is a safe zone, the dragon's grounds shouldn't be too far."

"Wait, wait, wait, what do you mean 'should'?!"

* * *

The dragon's grounds were indeed not far - but they found a most unpleasant discovery when they reached them. The rain was nowhere to be found, revealing a _wide-open area_ within the cave. Furthermore, opposite their entrance was a sharp upward slope, so steep that Lisbeth had no illusions they were going to be able to stand on it; at the very peak of the slope was a more uneven ridge that seemed to indicate something had landed there.

"Don't tell me," Lisbeth murmured.

"Most likely," Yui admitted.

Lisbeth groaned - and that vocalization echoed throughout the cavern. "How are we supposed to get up there?" she protested. "We can't fly indoors." Then, glancing at Yui; "Well, **I** can't fly indoors, do you have that skill yet?"

Yui shook her head. "Other than coming back," she admitted, "I can think of three options."

"Don't you dare try and run up that slope," Lisbeth reprimanded.

"I wasn't going to," Yui insisted.

The smith narrowed her gaze at her.

"...Option two-"

"I knew it!"

"Hey, I **wasn't** ," Yui insisted. "I'm not fast enough yet." Lisbeth smirked as Yui turned back to the slope; "Option two, we can try and climb along the walls. The build of the cave is uneven enough that we should have handholds and footholds."

"That sounds intensive," Lisbeth admitted. "What's option three?"

"We could hitch a ride on something that **can** fly in here," Yui replied.

"Like...?"

A loud roar from above answered the question; Yui drew her melee daggers, and Lisbeth turned to see a massive figure rising on the upper ridge, covered in scales of deep purple, with horns and claws of bright blue.

"Oh..."

* * *

"You guys gathered all of this for me?"

When Sinon had logged in to ALO, the last thing she had expected was for Asuna to invite her to a gathering like this. She, Kirito, Silica, Leafa, and Recon were gathered in the log home - and progress on the Shekinah quest had been almost completed. Lying on the living room table were a heavy, furry red robe, a golden staff covered in jewels shaped like leaves, a shallow stone bowl, and what looked like one of Tonky's tentacles.

"Yui figured out most of the riddles single-handedly," Kirito admitted. "Hunting the equipment was pretty easy; all that's left is for her and Liz to get back with the-"

The door was opened up, and Yui stepped in. "Mama, Papa, I'm home!"

Asuna smiled. "Welcome home, Yui!" she greeted. Then, when Liz stepped in looking frizzled; "Oh, what happened?"

"We got your ingot," Lisbeth muttered, tossing something in the direction of the table.

Sinon was sitting between the door and the table, and managed to catch it. "Wow," she mused, "that makes everything."

Yui stepped forward. "So," she mused, "it looks like you got everything else while we were gone?"

Silica nodded. "Agil had a dozen Hill Giant Shards from people who were fighting for Thyrm."

"Finding the begging bowl was easy," Asuna admitted. "The hard part was convincing someone else that they should get a deeper bowl if they were gonna eat out of it."

"The equipment was simple enough," Kirito observed, "but we put a little extra effort into finding stuff that was more appropriate, just in case."

"Then that's everything," Sinon observed. "All that's left is to take it to Shekinah's temple."

She added the other stuff to her inventory as Yui stepped up. "I'll come with you," she proposed. "I can show you how to open the door."

Sinon turned to her. "It doesn't stay open?"

"Not exactly..."

The two of them started out of the house, and Lisbeth turned to Kirito accusingly, prompting the Spriggan to raise his hands defensively. "What?"

"If anyone tries to tell me that Yui is not your daughter," she muttered, "I'm going to smack them with a broadsword. She owes me one."

Kirito chuckled. "I take it the dragon didn't go so well?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It took me way more effort than it should have to stop myself from making a Bohemian Rhapsody reference when Leafa protested.
> 
> A begging bowl, a rat's robe, a golden branch, a dragon's jewel, and a body of the sea worn by the sky. If you can tell me where that's from, I might give you a cameo in the next chapter as a fairy of your choice!


	7. ALO: Forgery

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> No correct guesses, so I'm gonna give away the answer. The Shekinah quest last chapter was a reference to the tale of Princess Kaguya. Approached by five princes who want her hand in marriage, Kaguya gives them each an impossible fetch quest: prince 1 must bring her Buddha's begging bowl, prince 2 must bring her a branch from a golden tree on Hourai, prince 3 must bring her the robe of the Chinese fire-rat, prince 4 must bring her a jewel from a dragon's neck, and prince 5 must bring her a cowry (snail) shell worn by swallows.
> 
> Anyways, interesting story. Draco wanted to start a new KHIII save file. But because of a particular twitch of the Re+Mind update, he's been using the Premium Menu to get a certain unlock via Critical Mode. (For very nonsensical reasons, I don't understand why he's so fricked about it.) How does he finally make himself stop doing that?
> 
> I just watched him recreate Kirito's first day in ALO with his KHIII save data.  
> ...You know, where he goes to delete his bugged SAO inventory, moves over the confirmation, and has to -close his eyes- and FORCE himself to press the button?
> 
> You know, one of these months, you guys aren't going to get a chapter because I won't have been in a SAO mood, but so far you've been lucky.

The door to Lisbeth's Smith Shop opened as Yui was descending; she made sure to land out of the way as a Pooka stepped out, stretching his arms over his head as though stiff. Yui considered greeting him, but elected to remain silent as his wings appeared and he took off; then she stepped inside, finding Lisbeth looking expectant behind the counter.

"There you are," Lisbeth mused.

"I got your message," Yui mused. "What's this 'interesting item' you got?"

She stepped up to the counter as Lisbeth opened her menu. "So, recently," she began, "I started accepting material drops as payment, at least in part - Agil gave me a list of relative values, so I have a decent gauge for everything. But yesterday, some Imp paid me with this."

A golden bar appeared from her menu - about the size of Yui's good daggers - and she seized it before it could fall and laid it carefully on the counter. Yui was about to ask what was so impressive about it before she saw the engraving upon the surface: a triangle, containing a sword with its tip against one point, and a vine extending from the opposite edge to curl around its hilt.

"Wait, that looks like Thyrmheim. What is...?" Yui tapped the ingot, causing the item description to come up. "A... Caliburn Ingot?"

"Remember what Urd told us about Thyrm's fake quest for Excalibur?" Lisbeth reminded her.

"The Forged Sword Caliburn," Yui recalled.

Lisbeth nodded. "Yep." She crossed her arms. "Thing is, ALO has some different rules for smithing than SAO did. One item doesn't necessarily equate to one weapon. Some weapon types even require multiple different material types. I've gotten to the point where I can usually tell how much of an item I need from how big it is."

Yui hummed. "With the size of Papa's Excalibur..."

"Exactly," Lisbeth agreed. "Caliburn would look close enough to Excalibur to be mistaken for it, right? At the ingot:sword ratio I'm used to, I'd need at least three of these to make a sword the size of Excalibur."

After a moment, Yui looked up at Lisbeth. "Did your customer happen to tell you where this was found?"

"In Jotunheim," Lisbeth replied. "Apparently they're just hidden in the landscape, no requirements necessary. Doesn't look like they're all that rare; he said they might even be respawning." She smirked at Yui. "Think you can hunt some down for me?"

"Of course," Yui agreed. "This looks interesting."

* * *

"Why did you invite me along for Liz's _gold_ _hunt_?"

Yui shook her head at Silica's complaint. "Ever since we finished things in Thyrmheim, Jotunheim has been a lot more vibrant," she defended. "If the Caliburn Ingots are just scattered around here, we need to pay attention. Cait Siths have the best eyesight in the game, and Pina can offer an extra pair of eyes to notice something we might overlook."

Pina gave an approving cry, causing Silica to sigh. "Whatever you say, Miss I-can-see-Cardinal."

"That's very different," Yui protested.

"How is that **any** different?" Silica countered. "If you can pick things out of the code like upcoming boss attacks and timers running in the background, I don't see why you can't home in on the ingots by yourself."

"I need to focus on something in order to try and inspect its code," Yui defended. "If I don't see it, I can't tell what it is. And I can't see things any better than a player can."

Silica crossed her arms as Pina lifted off her head. "What about your pixie navigation?" she argued.

"A Navi-Pixie gets a direct link to map data," Yui explained, "but I still have to be _trying_ to access it in order to figure anything out. If I start wandering without caring just because ALfheim Online is acknowledging me as a Navi-Pixie, it's no different than you wandering through a city you know without paying attention to the landmarks."

"I... suppose," Silica conceded. "But-"

Pina's cry drew their attention; the little dragon had flown towards a rather bushy tree, and was currently hovering close to the ground. Yui and Silica dashed up to her to find something lying on the ground between the point where the tree's roots vanished into the dirt - a gold bar.

"Is that it?" Silica asked.

Yui picked it up, finding the Thyrmheim emblem on its surface. "Looks like it," she confirmed, tapping it to check the label. "Yep, this is the stuff."

Silica smiled, turning to her dragon. "Good on you, Pina!" she praised, rubbing the little dragon's head gently. "I didn't even need to ask."

"She must have been paying attention when I talked about finding them," Yui observed, adding the ingot to her inventory.

"Huh?" Silica turned to her. "You mean... tamed monsters have that level of intelligence?"

"Most of them in ALfheim don't," Yui admitted. "But Pina arrived when you transferred your data from Sword Art Online, right? The routines for tamable monsters in Aincrad used a very complex structure, enhanced by the original Cardinal system. Pina should still be using that routine. Her intelligence will be a little higher than that of a real-world pets."

"Really?"

Yui scratched her head awkwardly. "Well, I mean, based on the information about..."

There was a moment of quiet; then Silica sighed. "So, how many ingots did Liz want?"

"She said she'd need at least three to make something of Excalibur's size," Yui observed, "but I'd say we should just keep looking until we get too tired to pay attention."

"Ehhh!?"

* * *

With two players and a tamed monster on the hunt, such a long search wasn't necessary; the girls had found a dozen ingots each before they were anywhere near tired enough to log out. Fairly certain that Lisbeth would be happy with that much, the two of them retired to the log house in New Aincrad, discovering that Kirito and Asuna were yet to log in.

"Do we tell Liz about the whole bounty," Silica asked, "or just give her the two she asked for?"

"I'm not sure, yet," Yui admitted. "There's... hmm." She opened up her menu and manifested an ingot, looking at it curiously. "I want to try something first," she admitted.

Silica blinked. "Huh? Try what?"

Yui set the ingot down on the table in the living room before opening her menu; as she pressed the log out button, her avatar vanished with a rush of light. Silica had made to sit down on the couch before another flash appeared next to the rocking chair - and Silica yelped when she realized it was Yui's Navi-Pixie form.

"What the-!?" She shook her head. "What are you doing?"

"I want to try and get a better look at the ingot," Yui admitted. "It's a little easier to inspect the code when I'm acknowledged as a Navi-Pixie."

Her form was wrapped in light, and Silica watched as she took her full body again (after she'd been a player for so long, it was weird to see her in that body without her weapons). "Right," she murmured, "it just thinks you're a Navi-Pixie, you don't have to be..."

Yui nodded as she picked up the ingot and sat back in the rocking chair, closing her eyes. "...This is interesting."

"What do you see?" Silica asked.

"Most smith materials are specifically tied to certain weapons," Yui explained. "The smith needs enough of the material to forge, but each material can only forge a specific weapon type. But the Caliburn Ingot is... different. There's ties to multiple different weapon types."

Silica started. "It does what?" she exclaimed. "Wait, then... How does it tell what you're trying to forge?"

Yui opened her eyes. "With how much of them you use," she explained. "If you ready so many Caliburn Ingots, it prepares to forge a certain weapon."

"Wow." Silica smiled, impressed. "Smart call, searching for that many of them." She looked at the ingot as Yui set it back down. "Wait, but then, how many different types can it make?"

* * *

"So, it takes five Caliburn Ingots to make a two-handed sword, four of them for a one-handed sword, three for a rapier, and two for a dagger."

As Lisbeth assessed Yui's findings, Silica crossed her arms. "Which one does Excalibur count as?"

"Papa doesn't have a skill level for two-handed swords," Yui observed. "It should just be a one-handed sword."

"Still, we've got a total of twenty-five ingots, here," Lisbeth mused. "No real need to conserve." She hummed. "But... I did want to try and make Caliburn in the first place. Let's start with that one."

Silica and Yui watched as she heated four of the ingots to malleability and brandished her smith's hammer. As she started to pound on the group of them, the ingots deformed, merging into each other; after a few strikes, the gathering was wrapped in red light, extending into the familiar shape of a long sword. Lisbeth pulled her hammer away as the light faded, revealing the golden weapon sitting there.

"Wow," Silica mused. "And here I thought Thyrm's reward would be an obvious fake. I'd believe that if I didn't see the item name."

"So would I," Lisbeth admitted. "Maybe he was going to present the sword to them before it was rewarded and disappear before they were able to- _Huh!?_ "

Her sudden outburst as she brought up the weapon information had Yui concerned. "What's wrong?" she asked. "Is it not Caliburn?"

"It is Caliburn," Lisbeth confirmed. "But the stats are... This is just barely the level of the sword I made for Kirito!"

"What?" Silica looked at the weapon again. "Then..."

Yui hummed. "Caliburn is a copy of Excalibur, so it should be weaker. But... Let's try the two-handed sword."

Lisbeth glared as Yui picked up the sword. "You didn't get any stats when you checked it out?"

"I couldn't see the stats of the weapons just by looking at the ingot," Yui defended. "I could only see the weapon IDs for the connected weapons."

Once the ingots were heated, Lisbeth got back to work. After a few strikes, these ones also began to change; the resulting sword has a broader and slightly longer blade, but otherwise had much the same design as Excalibur and Caliburn.

"Looks like the only real difference is the size and shape," Silica observed.

Lisbeth brought up the stats - and this time she gave an angered shout that was on the border of being called a scream. "What the hell!?"

"It is bad?" Yui asked.

"It's more than _bad_ ," Lisbeth proclaimed, "this is the worst two-handed sword I've ever made!" She sucked in a breath through her teeth before conceding; "Well... second-worst, technically. The weight-to-durablity ratio is actually better than the worst one. _But still!_ "

Silica picked up the greatsword. "I wonder..."

"Don't tell me you want me to try the rapier," Lisbeth protested

"Well, think about it," Silica insisted. "Four ingots made something that was almost as good as what we brought to Jotunheim. Five ingots made something worse. What if three ingots makes something better?"

Lisbeth grumbled for a moment before sighing. "Fine," she insisted, "but if this one sucks, I'm **not** making the dagger."

"That's fair," Yui assured her.

She and Silica leaned the weapons against the opposite wall while three ingots were heated, comparing the stats levels for themselves; the one-handed Caliburn was respectable from an overall point of view, but the two-handed 'Great Caliburn' was indeed of very poor quality, and had a skill requirement a good deal higher than its stats should have demanded. Once the materials were hot, Lisbeth started to hammer on them - making sure not to let her irritation affect her rhythm, knowing that acting poorly while she was forging would result in a failed creation.

After a moment, the three ingots began to glow; once again, the resulting weapon was only different in terms of proportions, with a narrower blade better suited to fencing form and a hilt that wouldn't protrude if worn at the hip.

Yui turned to her. "What's the verdict?"

Lisbeth took a deep breath as she brought up the stats... and she gasped in surprise when she got a good look at them. "No way."

"Did it work?" Silica asked.

"I think so," Lisbeth admitted. "This is actually a little better than the one I made for Asuna here in ALO." She narrowed her gaze. "Although... it's got a higher weight than a weapon this size should. That's not gonna work with Asuna's speed. Still, this is a pretty good weapon."

"We've got thirteen ingots left," Yui observed. "Should we try the dagger?"

Lisbeth nodded. "Yeah, let's try."

As she added two more ingots to the furnace, Yui picked up the rapier and set it down next to Caliburn; bringing up the stats revealed that, in addition to the weight, 'Swift Caliburn' needed a bit higher skill requirement than Asuna's rapier, but with proportionately better stats. It didn't take long for Lisbeth to get to work; she set the ingots on the counter and brought her hammer down into them, this time with an anticipation to her movements.

When these ingots started to change, Silica could have sworn they were _losing_ mass; it seemed like one bar was forming the blade and the other was forming the handle. When the glow faded, the dagger looked for all the world like a miniature Excalibur, and Lisbeth set her hammer down and brought up the stats.

"...Well?" Silica asked.

"...Well," Lisbeth observed, "it's... not quite on par with a legendary weapon."

Yui looked at the dagger. "But?"

"But this is a _much_ better weapon than the other three," Lisbeth admitted. "Take a look."

Silica picked it up and turned to the rapier, bringing up the stats for it and then the dagger. The 'Mini Caliburn' had a skill requirement barely higher than her own knife, but the stats were indeed incredible. "Wow," she observed.

"Yeah, wow," Lisbeth agreed. "Glad you talked me into it."

With a smile, Silica took the weapon by the blade and offered it to Yui. "You earned that one," she mused.

Yui looked at the dagger thoughtfully. "Maybe you should have it," she proposed.

Silica blinked. "Really?"

"Mhm," Yui agreed. "You helped me look for all the ingots, you might as well get a benefit out of it."

"What about the other three?" Lisbeth asked. "You planning on doing anything with them?"

"I don't think so," Yui admitted. "You should keep them at the shop."

Lisbeth hummed. "On one hand, golden weapons _would_ look good on the walls behind the counter..." She shook her head. "But as a smith, I can't have subpar swords on display!"

"Who said anything about display?" Silica asked. "You could just hang the two-handed one above the entrance, make it look like a decoration. And if someone realizes it's a weapon and steals it..."

"I've gotten rid of a really bad weapon," Lisbeth realized with a smile. "Maybe that's not a terrible idea..."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Any of you guys play Bravely Default? This chapter was inspired by some interesting weapons in Bravely Second. There are three Excalibur weapons - 'Excalibur', which is a greatsword, 'Excalibur II', which is a standard sword, and 'Excalibur III', which is a dagger. They are, roughly, the third-best greatsword, the second-best sword, and the best dagger.


	8. GGO: Conversion

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What, no updates since March? Don't act like I didn't warn you. I told you my updates would only happen on every 24th that followed me being inspired to write new chapters. When I don't get inspired, you're not getting any player Yui shots.
> 
> So, quick update: on Draco's birthday in April, he got... informed that Ordinal Scale was en route. Shipping delays meant it didn't arrive until mid-June, whereupon we discovered that DVDs are not region-free. There's enough equipment that we have an alternative means of playing local DVDs, but he still had to work up the courage to change the settings on his PS4 despite that being his ONLY means of playing the movie. He just changed it on the 19th and we watched it together.
> 
> Very, very, very very very very worth it. That was awesome, beautiful, and so worth the wait.
> 
> When I finally came down from that high, I scrutinized happenings and was very pleased to discover that this story still fits into continuity after Ordinal Scale. I'm fully expecting my inspiration for this story to die hard and fast come Alicization, but Ordinal Scale ends with VR is no longer endangered and Yui accompanying her parents with the shoulder-camera, so this story works as a post-Ordinal Scale story as long as you take note of the fact that everyone I care about writing prefers VR to AR.
> 
> Also, the basis for my other fic Difference is still sound, because Kazuto DOES still have his old NervGear as of Ordinal Scale.
> 
> Okay, infodump over with. So, thanks to my having watched and enjoyed SAO Alt GGO, I had an idea for Yui's next stint as a player. That being said, I'm going to be taking a lot of liberties with GGO because it's not gone into a whole lot of detail (and I don't know guns that well).

"You want to come play in GGO?"

Sinon was surprised at Yui's proclamation; they, Silica, and Lisbeth were grinding in New Aincrad, and after finding a safe zone to take a break in, Yui had spoken up about her idea. "I just thought it would be worth trying out," Yui admitted. "It's not like I don't enjoy playing ALO, but that doesn't mean I shouldn't consider other games if it's not any extra trouble."

"Maybe not for you," Silica pointed out, "but what about Kirito? How's he gonna feel about having to get you a new game?"

"Papa already plays GGO semi-frequently," Yui defended, "it's not going to be out of his way."

Lisbeth hummed. "What about your subscription fee?" she argued. "Doesn't a GGO account cost, like, twice as much as ALO account? If Kirito's already paying for a GGO account on top of his ALO account, how much is he gonna appreciate-?"

"You guys know GGO is an actual _professional_ game, right?" Sinon interrupted. "You can convert your in-game currency into real-world money and vice-versa, and the game has an option to pay your subscription fee in credits. Even after the AGI nerf, Spiegel was able to make enough from monster-hunting to pay for the bulk of his subscription before..."

She trailed off, and silence filled the safe zone for a moment. Then Silica giggled, drawing everyone's attention as she turned to Yui. "What about your avatar, though?" she asked. "ALO lets you carry over your appearance from other games and just adjusts it to your chosen fairy race, but aren't GGO's avatars randomized?"

"I'm not sure it's completely random," Sinon admitted. "Kirito still has the same M9000 he did in the BoB, and he created an entirely new account instead of converting over again. I reckon Little Miss Cardinal over here could game the system a little bit if she really wanted to."

Yui glared at her. "I'm not gonna do it on purpose," she insisted. "If the Seed does something different because of me, then I'll take it, but if not, then I'm fine with whatever avatar I end up with."

Sinon raised an eyebrow. "So you're fine with ending up as, say, some big, bulky woman with arms like-"

"Uuuuugh," Lisbeth interrupted. "I don't want to think about that!"

* * *

Fortunately, Yui's initial trial wouldn't be too pay-intensive; GGO had a three-day trial period that would give her plenty of time to at least gauge how much she'd enjoy the game, and although it didn't allow credit-to-yen conversion without a full account, Yui was confident in her ability to pay for her own account once she'd gotten into a groove. Kirito insisted he accompany her on the initial venture; after safely storing her equipment and Yuld at the forest home in New Aincrad where it wouldn't be lost when she converted, he and Yui made their way to GGO.

Sinon was waiting at the new-player spawn point when Yui arrived; when the manifestation shimmer faded out, the look on the veteran's face told Yui that Cardinal _had_ in fact given her an avatar close to her own appearance even before she approached a nearby window to observe her reflection.

"I really hope this is a legitimate avatar," Yui murmured.

"What," Sinon retorted, "you worried you're gonna get in trouble if an admin sees you?"

"A little bit, yes," Yui confirmed. "I don't want to think about what might happen to _me_ if someone assumes I'm hacking a professional game and deletes my player account."

Sinon's face fell. "I... guess I didn't think of that," she admitted. "Maybe we should have thought this through."

Yui took a deep breath, turning to one side to look at herself in profile. "I do have some safeguards in place in case of... unwanted modifications," she mused. "And if it happens while I'm logged out, I shouldn't have to-"

"Hey, little lady!" The voice from nearby caught Yui off-guard, prompting her to jump away from a man who had come up nearly point-blank at her other side without her noticing; Sinon herself reacted with mild surprise as well, stepping back in concern. "That avatar... That's the F6100 series, isn't it? That's pretty rare!" He held out his hand. "How about selling it to me, account and all?"

"F-F61...?" Yui glanced down at herself, then to Sinon, and then back to the stranger before breathing a sigh of relief. "Thanks," she insisted, "but I'll have to pass. I transferred here from another game, and if I don't like GGO, I'm not gonna give up all my hard-earned stats when I transfer back."

The stranger groaned. "Are you sure?" he insisted. "I'd be willing to compensate you for the effort. How about f-"

"Don't you have anything better to do than harass a new player over their account?" Sinon demanded. "Come on, Yui."

The two of them started away, and although the stranger didn't make to follow them, he did call after her; "Let me know if you change your mind!"

Sinon rolled her eyes. "I swear every other new player has a broker trying to buy their account," she muttered. "What do you even do with someone's 'rare avatar', anyways?"

Yui gave a confused hum. "Maybe they can make money off of trading them to players who don't like the avatar they end up with?" she wondered. "I know Papa's always complaining about his."

"Yeah," Sinon admitted, "but buying and selling whole accounts? That means giving up your login information and having to make use of someone else's. That's a huge security risk even if you can change it after the fact."

"True." Yui closed her eyes. "...6192."

Sinon turned to her. "Sorry?"

"My avatar," Yui replied. "It looks like the first two digits are the figure of your avatar, and the last two are variables for hair color, eye color, skin tone... Mine is registered as 'F6192'."

"Only a hundred different variables, huh?" Sinon shook her head. "Anyways, Kirito said he'd meet us at the market. You can sample the different gun types and figure out what works for you." Then, more hesitant; "I hope your memory's as good with hands-on weaponry as it is with enemy attack patterns. If you don't buy the gun first, you've got one clip to test it out."

"Doesn't GGO have a tutorial?" Yui asked.

Sinon looked awkward. "It does," she admitted, "but the NPC in charge is kind of... crass."

"Let's go to the market first, so I know the way there," Yui insisted. "But I'm probably better off taking the tutorial than testing the guns with those conditions."

* * *

"Glad you could make it, maggot!"

Yui was caught off-guard; she'd triggered the tutorial once Sinon had shown her to the outside of the market, but no sooner had she been transported to what looked like a firing range than a loud, invasive voice hit her from behind. She turned around to find a tall woman in rather revealing garb, brandishing what looked like a riding crop as she stepped forward. "M-Maggot?" Yui protested.

"If you're not a maggot," the woman retorted, "then you must be a naive little worm!" She swept her crop forward. "Listen to me, worm! This world is overrun with grotesque monsters, out-of-control machines, and homicidal players!" Yui's brow furrowed as the woman stepped forward, scrutinizing her code through her rant. "Starting now, I'm going to beat into you the skills you need to live in this harsh environment."

 _No HP gauge, limited to the immediate surroundings..._ _This must be the NPC Sinon mentioned._ _But... what's with her dialogue tree? A randomizer at the start, and branches based on player actions?_ Yui shook her head. _Either way, the Zaskar developers who programmed her obviously didn't expect SAO survivors to show up here. Mentioning homicidal players is a sure way to set off some bad memories for the Assault Teams._

The NPC loomed over her confrontingly. "You will answer me when I speak to you, worm!"

Yui sighed. _Yeah, 'crass' was well earned._

"Why did you come here, worm?" the NPC demanded.

"To fight in the world of guns," Yui said firmly.

"Good answer!" the NPC praised. "To fight and survive!"

 _I pity the first-time full-diver who ends up here,_ Yui bemoaned. _No one wants a drill sergeant grilling them on what's supposed to be a friendly **Holy Cardinal that's a barrel!**_

She briefly forgot the safe zone for a moment as the NPC prodded a handgun against her cheek. "Tell me, worm, do you know what this is?"

"Th-That's a pistol," Yui stuttered.

"You're more perceptive than most, worm," the NPC praised, pulling it away. Yui stepped back, taking a deep breath.

 _Okay, forget SAO survivors,_ she muttered, blocking out the drill sergeant's ramble. _Holding a live-ammo weapon to someone's face **barrel-first?!** That could set a player's pulse to racing fast enough to set off the AmuSphere's auto-disconnect!_

"Answer me!" the NPC demanded.

"Yes!" Yui insisted.

"I will now teach you the basics of gun handling," the NPC proclaimed - and once again did she aim her pistol at the player. Yui yelped, stumbling back as the Bullet Prediction Line extended from the barrel, centered between her eyes.

_She did it again! What the hell is wrong with these people!?_

* * *

"You look like you just came out of a boss raid."

Kirito's comment as Yui stepped into the marketplace earned him a grumble. "Don't **ever** take me to America," she muttered.

"Don't say I didn't warn you," Sinon retorted. "Zaskar assumed that whoever wants to play a game called _Gun Gale_ is interested in getting to know their firearms up close and personal. Quite frankly, I'm shocked they had a translation team willing to put effort into something like that."

"How did _you_ manage to sit through that?" Yui demanded.

Sinon shook her head. "I didn't," she insisted. "As soon as she started yelling at me, I resigned from the tutorial and trained myself the hard way." Her face fell. "Speaking of..."

"I managed to get enough out of it to know what I want to look for," Yui admitted. "And considering I don't think I'll be entering Bullet of Bullets any time soon-"

"You think optic weapons will work for you?" Sinon mused. "It's not that clear-cut."

Kirito turned to her. "It's not?"

Sinon sighed. "I'm not totally proud to admit it," she observed, "but... monster hunters don't always have the luxury of only fighting monsters. A PK rewards the victor with anything the defeated has obtained since they last left a safe zone, with squads needing to be taken out as a whole. PvP squads tend to target monster hunters on their way back from a hunt. Going out with just optic weapons should only last until you have enough money for a live-ammo backup."

"Speaking of..." Yui started.

"You are _not_ playing the Untouchable," Sinon reprimanded.

"I wasn't going to suggest that one," Yui protested. "The way Papa talked about it when he first got back, there's no way anyone else we know could beat it. I was going to ask if there's any other sort of money-making games."

Sinon shook her head in disapproval. "You sure you don't want me to just cover your first weapon?" she asked. "There's no sense in going out of your way for a trial run of the game. If you end up not enjoying it..."

Yui hummed, turning to Kirito.

Kirito raised an eyebrow. "What?"

"You still have your weapons from the BoB," Yui observed.

Sinon turned to him as he glanced down at his belt; his Photon Sword and FN Five-seveN were hooked on his belt. "Oh, yeah," he admitted. "I, uh-"

"Are those the same ones?" she asked. "I assumed you'd just waited for the Untouchable to build up a decent pot again."

"I hid them in a dumpster before I transferred back to ALO," Kirito admitted. "Then when I made a new account, I dug them back out."

"Seriously?"

Yui hummed. "A pistol would work best for me," she admitted. "Do you mind if I just use yours for a couple encounters?"

"Sure," Kirito insisted. "I tend to stick to the sword, anyways."

"Of course you do."

* * *

The three of them made their way out of Glocken on a bike, with Yui's small frame giving them enough room to take one; the environs of GGO were depressingly barren, although Sinon explained that things got a little more vibrant further out. Soon enough, they managed to find a group of small, boar-like monsters that looked like SAO's first-floor encounters.

"I swear these guys are in every game," Kirito mused as they dismounted.

"Small creatures with frontal-assault tactics?" Sinon pointed out. "Nice simple opponents for a first-timer. Every game's a little different, you don't want to find out that your old tactics don't work fighting a giant that burrows underground."

Yui drew Kirito's FN and stepped forward to draw their aggro; as she raised the pistol and set her finger on the trigger, the Bullet Circle appeared in her vision, expanding and condensing. The nearest boar made to charge towards her, and she kept her focus on it as it started to get close, waiting until she was sure her shot would hit. It was only a few steps away when she pulled the trigger; the shot flew forward, and slammed into the beast, causing it to whine and recoil before shimmering and shattering.

The next boar made to charge her before the first one had fully vanished; Yui turned her focus on it and fired again once she was sure she wouldn't miss.

Sinon smirked. "You ALO players always have the most unorthodox methods," she mused.

"Huh?" Yui turned to her. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"You stood out in the open, waited for it to get close, and then fired at it from point-blank," Sinon reprimanded. "That's a close-combat strategy."

"I didn't know how else to make sure I would hit," Yui defended. "When you pull the trigger, the bullet picks a random trajectory within the Bullet Circle. I need to make sure as much of the Circle's filled with my enemy as I can, or I'm just gonna shoot air."

Kirito smirked. "She's not wrong," he pointed out.

"Oh, shut up, swordsman," Sinon retorted. "Anyways, standing in place out in the open usually isn't practical in a firefight. You don't want to have your whole body visible if you're going to be a stationary target. Monsters might not have a lot in the way of strategy, but PK squads really aren't picky."

"Well, assuming we run into any punks who are gonna ambush a player on her first day," Kirito countered, "what's your advice for the real fights, veteran?"

Sinon drew her Hecate off her shoulder. "There are three basic options when it comes to firearm strategies," she explained. "The first is to find good cover and keep your eye out; wait for your opponent to expose themselves, and take the shot in that brief window."

Yui shook her head. "And put my perfectly good AGI to waste?" she retorted.

A smile rose on Sinon's face. "That's not a popular opinion with players who only play GGO, either," she admitted. "AGI used to be _the_ stat to max out, and even now, a pure STR build is reserved for guys who want to carry Miniguns. Hiding and waiting is the domain of snipers, and even _we_ can't stick around at long range and expect any shot but the first to connect without a squad to keep their attention."

She held Hecate before in both hands. "The other option is to keep moving at all times. A moving target is that much harder to hit; don't sit still long enough for your enemy to get a bead on you, and get close enough to land a hit."

"That sounds more like Papa's strategy," Yui observed.

"Only because I can use the Prediction Lines to parry," Kirito defended.

"Says the guy who cut my bullet in half from ten metres based on my eye through the scope," Sinon retorted. "Ever since the third BoB, people have been blowing their money on Photon Swords and finding out that the kind of reflexes you need to parry a bullet are completely broken. The only other person who came even close to making one of those things work only _almost_ won the second Squad Jam, and neither she nor the winners qualified for BoB."

Kirito chuckled awkwardly.

"Anyways, a strategy that relies only on moving isn't always a good idea, either," Sinon continued, turning back to Yui. "If your path is too consistent, your opponent's going to learn to lead their shots. And even if it isn't, close misses are likely to up your heart rate, which means the Bullet Circle becomes more variable. If you can't keep your pulse steady, you have to get to pretty much contact range before you hit anything. Or keep your finger off the trigger so the Bullet Line doesn't even appear, but you need military-level experience with firearms if you're gonna risk raw ballistics."

Yui gave a concerned hum, looking down at herself. "...What's the third strategy?"

"The middle road," Sinon replied, raising Hecate to brace against her shoulder. "GGO is scattered with cover; even the areas where large field monsters spawn usually have a few places where you can hide and rest up if you're quick on your feet." Her finger found the trigger, and Yui traced the Bullet Line to find she was aiming at what looked like a cross between an armadillo and a samurai. "So you move between cover whenever you can, trying to keep your opponent unaware of your exact location until your shot hits."

She pulled the trigger, and the _boom_ of Hecate's shot echoed across the barrens; it hit the ground next to the monster she had targeted, and it promptly balled up and started to roll towards them.

Kirito groaned. "Well, Yui?" he asked.

Yui glanced around; the 'cover' around here was an array of boulders, and she quickly nodded, charging forward with Kirito's FN still clutched in her hand. As soon as she had the monster's aggro, she raised the pistol, fired to keep its attention on her, and then diverted her path behind one of the stones. The shot struck the monster's hide to deal damage - but it was much less damage than it should have been, mitigated by a situational resistance while it rolled. It righted itself, looking around for her, and only once she was sure it wouldn't notice her soon enough to roll again did Yui emerge around the boulder and fire at its underside.

This shot was much more promising; the monster tumbled back, and shattered into fragments.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> An Incarnation of the Radius. [A]n [Inc]arnation of the [Rad]ius. That was brilliant. I might have Yui go back to SAO-K sometime just so I can reference that.
> 
> Couldn't play in GGO and not have that avatar buyer show up, could I? Yui's avatar code is goroawase - 6192 can be read as "mu-hi-ku-pu", aka "MHCP".  
> As a side note, Kirito's M9000 is initially mistaken for an F1300; assuming that the only difference is... gender details (and the buyer knows his stuff well enough), I'm pretty sure that if Asuna were to play GGO, her IRL/SAO appearance would conform properly to an F1300.


	9. GGO: Armaments

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was gonna be one chapter with the previous, but it went on longer than I expected it to so I split it into two for the same update.

"This stuff tastes a _lot_ better than NPC-sold stuff in SAO."

After a few hours of monster-hunting, Yui, Kirito, and Sinon had made their way back to Glocken. At Kirito's comment, Sinon only smiled. "Makes up for the lack of cooking engine," she observed. "Without being able to dissect everything like Asuna does, they better make the in-game food taste good." Then, changing the subject; "So, Yui? How do you like GGO?"

"It's... different," Yui admitted. "But it's not a _bad_ different. Maybe I should try this out a little more." She opened her menu to check her credit count. "Except..."

"Are you still worried about the money angle?" Kirito mused.

Yui sighed, turning to Sinon. "Are there any money-making games besides the Untouchable?"

Sinon crossed her arms. "There are a few different kinds," she admitted. "But none of them have a very good reputation. Common opinion is that 'they're _technically_ a test of skill, in the same way that breaking a boulder with your bare hands is a test of strength'."

Kirito hummed awkwardly as Yui shook her head. "Can you show me one?"

With some reluctance, Sinon led the two of them to a large open-air market in the lower levels of Glocken; most of what was sold was aesthetic stuff like outfits, but there was what seemed to be a shooting gallery at the far end, titled "Shoot 'Er Up", and run by a robotic NPC that looked like a classical hunter. Much like the Untouchable, it seemed to reward the victor with the efforts of all the losers, with a pot in the 200,000 range.

"They give you something that looks like a crossbow for this thing," Sinon explained. "You have twenty seconds and fifteen shots to hit ten targets. The crossbow is kind of like an optic weapon, so you don't need to cock it manually between shots."

"Sounds easy enough," Kirito mused, "if a little better-geared for gun players. What's the catch?"

"What's _not_ the catch," Sinon snarked.

Yui saw someone approaching the game. "Someone's going to try," she mused, "let's watch him."

The player set his hand on the activation panel, whereupon the weapon appeared in front of him. It did indeed look like a crossbow - small enough to hold it in one hand, and he raised it with a two-handed grip like was ideal for a pistol as the timer started to count down.

"The first problem is the weapon," Sinon pointed out. "Nothing the players can use even compares, and not in a good way; the shots are slow, very susceptible to gravity, and the recoil is disproportionately huge."

The timer set off, and shapes began to appear over the range - large, multicoloured balloon-looking things that floated in the air and moved haphazardly. The NPC hunter spoke up with a high-pitched, whiny voice like someone who knew he was better than everyone. " _Come on, then, you think you're a crack shot?_ "

"Then there's the targets," Sinon observed as the player began to fire. "They don't have a consistent flight path, it's completely at random. You'll be right about to make a shot, and it'll change trajectory and leave the shot you led hitting nothing but at air."

Yui scrutinized the environment as the player made to fire at them; a Prediction Line appeared to show its path, which indeed had much more of a downward arc than it should have. When he pulled the trigger, his whole hand trembled with the recoil, and a strange projectile flew forward that looked like some cross between an unshafted arrowhead and optic weapon fire. They were indeed moving much slower than any bullet would; one was en route to the target before it changed directions, leaving it soaring past and wasting the shot.

" _Oooh, not such a sharp shooter, are ya?_ "

Sinon sighed. "He's just icing on the cake," she mused. "There is nothing that ruins a gunman's focus worse than having someone talking in your ear at every action you make."

The gunman only managed to hit one target before he was out of shots; only fifteen seconds had passed, and he lowered his hands with an exasperated sigh as the crossbow and targets vanished. " _Sorry,_ " the NPC hunter taunted, waving him off. " _Better luck next time!_ "

Yui narrowed her gaze. "I think..."

"Seriously," Sinon murmured as the little one started forward. "Like father, like daughter."

"Here's hoping that applies to her success as much as her attempt," Kirito admitted.

Yui set her hand on the activation panel, and the crossbow appeared in her hand as it accepted her payment. It wasn't of a different size compared to the last user, which meant that it was much more of a two-handed weapon by her reckoning; with a curious hum, she raised it readily, putting her finger on the trigger to observe the Bullet Circle.

Three... two... one... GO!

The balloons began to appear, and the NPC hunter jeered at her. " _Alright, then, let's see how well you really do fire!_ "

Yui blotted out the voice, keeping her attention on the targets. The trajectories really did seem to be randomized, no matter how she tried to look at them. Yet, as she held her fire, she realized that there was limiters on exactly _how_ random their flight could be - each target seemed to stay within a certain zone, some of which seemed to overlap from this perspective. And if she were to...

At ten seconds, she moved the crossbow to aim at the left side of the range and tilted it sideways.

Her finger tightened and released on the crossbow's trigger as fast as she could, still feeling the recoil from one shot as she set off the next. The first shot was still in flight as the fourth flew, and she let the recoil fade out and brought it back into position to fire again. Three more, and then three, and then four more; as the twelfth shot left her weapon, the first slammed into a balloon, and the shooting gallery became a wave of explosions and flying shots for just a brief moment - yet ten of those shots certainly did hit the balloons that were floating around the range.

When the smoke cleared, the range was empty; she still had three seconds left on the clock, and one shot left to fire.

The crowd watching her was silent as she lowered her weapon; then the NPC hunter gave a loud groan, burying his head in his arms against the counter. " _Well, I'll be damned! Guess you really do got it in ya."_

From the ten points where the balloons had been, coins began to scatter as though shrapnel from explosions; the crossbow vanished from Yui's hands as she gave a sigh of relief. The prize counter began to decrease as the crowd gave astonished cheers; once the display was empty, a confirmation panel appeared before Yui, and she accepted the prize before stepping out of the way; the NPC promptly righted himself, looking over the crowd in curiosity.

Kirito was clapping lightly, impressed; Sinon, meanwhile, was absolutely dumbfounded. "How...? How did you do that? _What_ did you do? The way that you..."

"The targets' individual trajectories were randomized," Yui pointed out, "but they were still confined to certain areas so that a player is less likely to take out a lot of them at once. So I separated my shots by about the width of the targets and aimed them at a level where the targets were most likely to be within, maximizing my chance of hitting them. By firing as many shots as possible in a short time, it was more likely that the targets would dodge one only to hit the next one, and the recoil of the weapon helped get my aim into position for the next shot. And I doubled up shots where it seemed like the target boundaries seemed to overlap a little bit."

"But... you only shot fourteen times," Sinon protested.

Yui scratched her head. "I was scared if I shot the NPC, it would penalize me," she admitted.

* * *

"The Five-seveN works better for you than it does for me, maybe you should keep that one."

Kirito's comment as the trio made their way back to the market earned him a jab in the ribs from Sinon. "If you go into battle with nothing but a Photon Sword, you're going to be made a fool of sooner or later."

Yui hummed, stepping towards the pistol selection. "It could work for me," she observed. "But if I'm mostly going monster-hunting, maybe I should just get a couple of optic weapons and keep a live-ammo backup."

"A lot of the smarter monster-hunting squads think that way," Sinon admitted. "That being said, though, it's probably better not to let your skills with live ammo atrophy. Why not just get a full loadout of live ammo?"

"Live-ammo guns are heavier, though," Yui pointed out. "My STR isn't quite as good as Papa's." She opened her menu and showed her stats to Sinon.

Sinon hummed. "Kirito's a STR-main with AGI a close second," she observed, "you're the other way around. You're high enough to use most of the decent weapons, it's just the really big stuff that'll be out of your league." Then, as Yui retracted the menu; "I certainly hope you're not intending to get a Photon Sword."

Yui shook her head. "I don't even use one-handed swords in ALO," she reprimanded. "At most, I'll get a knife for in case I run out of ammo in a PvP encounter."

She turned around, approaching the pistol selection as Kirito crossed his arms. "I think she enjoys GGO almost as much as she does ALO," he pointed out.

"I guess," Sinon mused. Then; "Are you gonna pay for her subscription if she decides she wants to stick around?"

Kirito shook his head. "The first month, at least," he insisted. "Seeing as you can't pay for the subscription in credits during the trial period. After that... I doubt she's gonna be entering BoB. I'll pay for whatever she can't cover in encounter prizes."

"How's Asuna gonna feel about you spoiling her?" Sinon retorted.

"I'm not _spoiling_ her," Kirito defended.

Sinon gave him a look.

"...If I find she's not play regularly enough to make up for the bulk of it," Kirito insisted, "I'll only give her a month warning."

"That's fair enough," Sinon mused.

"Maybe I'll take two of these."

Yui's comment caught them off-guard; they turned their attention back to find her looking at the details for a pistol that was a bit heavier-duty than Kirito's FN. "H-Hey," Sinon insisted, "you're getting two of the same gun?"

"I think so," Yui confirmed. "This way I can fire more before I need to reload, and two of the same gun means they'll take the same ammo."

"That's one reason to carry multiple guns," Kirito mused.

"Well, yes, but..." Sinon eyed her selection disdainfully. "Pistols?"

Yui turned to her. "What's wrong with pistols?"

"GGO _is_ an RPG," Sinon pointed out, "and if you don't hit your target in the head or the neck, you're dealing HP damage like any other game. Pistols are sidearms, meant to be a fallback option, or used to finish off an opponent you have helpless without wasting your primary ammo..." She turned to Kirito. "Or something to throw your target off-guard while you close the gap, if that's your style."

"Then you're saying I need to make sure I'm accurate," Yui observed, turning back to the menu.

"Yes, but-" Sinon was cut off as she hit the confirmation; the sales platform appeared from nearby, and she sighed as Yui turned to accept her purchase. "Still a child after all," she mused.

Kirito chuckled. "And I wouldn't trade her for the world," he admitted. Then, opening his menu; "Yui, it's getting a bit late. I'm gonna log out, alright?"

"Alright, Papa," Yui assured him. "I won't be too late."

With a smile, Kirito hit the logout button; as he vanished, Sinon turned to Yui. "You've got enough for ammo and armor, right?"

Yui's face fell. "Oh, no," she muttered. "Ammo, yes, but I forgot about armor."

Giggling, Sinon shook her head. "Let me buy you just that," she insisted. "Then we'll head out for another round of encounters."

* * *

Without Kirito to drive, they didn't make very good time with the bike; that being said, it was still faster than travelling on foot. The two of them eventually found themselves fighting an enjoyable encounter against a giant thing that looked like a scorpion - between Yui's maneuverability up close and Sinon being able to fire at it from a distance, they were able to take it down while only suffering scratches themselves.

"Guess you proved me wrong," Sinon praised, stepping towards Yui. "You're definitely making a pair of pistols work better than I thought."

"Thanks, I think?" Yui mused. "I still feel like maybe I should have gotten an optic weapon inst-"

She cut herself off as she saw something out-of-place - a gleam of light reflecting off of something. After a moment, she realized what it was - and then the light vanished, and she instantly dropped down, parting her legs and setting one hand on the ground to minimize her profile from the side.

A bullet slammed into a rock behind her, and the gunshot was heard.

Sinon stepped back. "What the-?!"

"There!" Yui exclaimed, pointing the way the shot had come. "PKers!"

A Bullet Prediction Line appeared on Sinon's center mass; she quickly moved aside before the attacker could fire, leaving the shot to pass through where she had been as she took cover behind a rock. "What do you want to do?" she asked.

Yui scanned the terrain between them and their attackers before circling around to join Sinon behind cover. "What's the usual practice for PKers with a sniper?"

"The sniper keeps her distance," Sinon replied, "and makes the shot once the others- Ah, _crap_. The rest of the squad is probably within firing range by now."

"Right then." Yui drew her pistol again. "Stay behind me; if someone comes into view, take them out."

"I can't shoot from behind cover in a prone position," Sinon warned, "so I'll be generating Prediction Lines."

"I'll try to keep their attention on me," Yui insisted. "Come on!"

She charged forward; sure enough, machine gunners popped up, turning their weapons on Yui. As soon as their Prediction Lines appeared, she dove behind cover, letting their shots trail her; when an overestimated lead ended up hitting the other side of her cover, she jumped onto it and leapt, firing at her attackers. Three shots hit a gunner in the brow, between the eyes, and in the neck; another pair hit his companion in the shoulder and arm, and while he was reacting to the shots, Yui landed in front of him and struck his gun with an upward kick, knocking it out of his hand.

She promptly holstered her pistol and grabbed his weapon before it hit the ground, turning it on him and pulling the trigger; at point blank range, the ballistics didn't matter, and the recoil dragged the weapon up so the HP damage painted a line up his torso. As he faded out, another player took aim at her with a rifle; she managed to put the stolen gun between her and the Prediction Line, causing it to break against the shot. The attacker was too shocked by the failure to notice the Prediction Line on _him_ before a hole was blown in his chest.

Sinon lowered her rifle, making to follow as Yui charged towards another member of the squad, who was brandishing a shotgun. _There's... a resonance,_ she observed. _Between her fighting style and Kirito's._ Yui promptly dropped low to slide under a blast, the shower hitting the ground just past her hair; as he tried to correct his aim; Yui shot upright, bashing the barrel with the butt of her pistol to aim it away from her and then aiming at his head to fire. _Even though she doesn't use a melee weapon, she tries to get in close before she fights._

A Prediction Line appeared on her cheek; she quickly moved out of the way, letting the sniper's shot fly past her. "Amateur," she reprimanded, though more to herself. "You've blown your hidden shot, you're not gonna get anyone else. The Prediction Lines give too much reaction time at this range."

Yui found someone popping up over cover with another shotgun... as she was trying to vault it, striking him in the face with a flying kick. As he reeled back, she quickly brought her gun down and fired at him once, twice. The third shot clicked empty; she promptly holstered her pistol and grabbed his shotgun, aiming it at him to finish him off and then charging towards the sniper's position again.

A Prediction Line extended past her cover as she was charging out - and a shot slammed into her leg, leaving her stumbling.

"Yui!" Sinon quickly charged forward as the struck leg shattered, picking Yui up and dragging her behind cover before the sniper could finish her off. "Dammit, that's what I get for tempting fate."

"How long does limb regeneration take in GGO?" Yui asked, her voice sounding strained.

"Two minutes," Sinon replied. "Hold on, I'll-"

Yui grabbed her arm. "No. That one came from a different point. He's on the move."

"Dammit," Sinon muttered. "I swear he missed me a few times on purpose just to lull us into a false sense of security. What do we do, then?"

A shot slammed into the side of their cover, and Yui turned towards it. "If you can get him while he's in motion, I think he's the only one, but he knows we're right here."

Sinon sighed, opening her menu. "Okay, I need you to promise not to tell your father about this."

"About what?" A tap on Sinon's menu answered her question; her own pistol vanished, and Yui was caught by surprise when she recognized the cylindrical profile that appeared in its place. "Is that a-?"

Indeed it was; Sinon drew it from her belt and flipped a switch, triggering the hot-pink blade of a Photon Sword. She promptly raised it above their cover, and the Bullet Line that appeared on it told her what direction the sniper was coming from; as soon as the shot connected with it, she brought the blade down on the stone they were hiding behind, the design of the blade letting it tear through like Minigun fire. Yui watched with astonishment as Sinon deactivated the blade and brought the barrel of Hecate into the gap she had carved; sure enough, the sniper was advancing towards them; and as she took aim with the Bullet Circle she saw him make to fire back at her.

The two pulled their triggers in the same instant; Sinon moved as soon as the recoil ended, activating her Photon Sword again and holding it over Hecate as she angled it earthward in desperation. The last thing she wanted was to have her weapon destroyed (replacing her scope cost her enough, she didn't want to think about how hard it would be to get another Hecate); to her relief, the sniper's shot in fact struck the cover beside the gap she'd carved. As she withdrew Hecate and deactivated her blade, she peered over her cover to see the sniper grasping at shards, and smiled.

"He's disarmed," she observed. "You mind if I take him out?"

"Go for it," Yui insisted, "but you owe me answers!"

With a nod, Sinon got to her feet, clipping the Photon Sword to her belt as she charged forward. The PKer had stopped advancing and was now trying to retreat; Sinon quickly raised her Hecate and took aim at his legs, managing to get one in retaliation for Yui's. As he fell to the ground, she grabbed Hecate by the strap and threw it over her shoulder; the PKer turned round to face her as she drew her Photon Sword from her belt.

"Huh?" Confusion was plain on his face. "You're not the madwoman from Squad Jam _or_ the berserker who blocks bullets!"

"Nope," Sinon confirmed, activating the blade. "Just one of many who tried to copy him and failed."

" **Him?!** " the PKer echoed incredulously.

"The berserker," Sinon replied, turning the blade forward. "What, you didn't know Kirito was a guy?"

The PKer had a look of horror that Sinon suspected had nothing to do with the way she drove the blade into his torso, finishing off his HP.

* * *

"So when you were talking about people wasting money trying to copy Papa, you were insulting yourself?"

Sinon sighed, leaning back in her seat. "Yeah, I was," she confirmed. "And I deserve to be insulted more than any of them, considering I _know_ how Kirito got those reflexes **and** I was there when he found out how expensive Photon Swords are." She glanced down at her weapon. "Still didn't stop me from thinking that when the Prediction Lines are involved, it couldn't be that hard."

Yui giggled. "And you don't want Papa to know about this because...?"

"Because I'm one of countless players who derided Photon Swords for being short-range weapons in a world of guns," Sinon insisted, letting the weapon vanish and putting her usual sidearm back on. "I'm still the only player in ALO who wants to snipe someone from 100 meters, I don't want him to think I'm just another gunner who jumped on the bandwagon."

"But... you _are_ just another gunner who jumped on the bandwagon," Yui retorted.

Sinon's face was bright red. "But I _knew better!_ " she insisted. "I didn't do it because it was popular, I did it because I saw it in person and overestimated myself. I thought that spending time around fairies in ALO who swing swords would let me work as a swordswoman. Fat lot of good it did me."

Yui leaned forward. "Do you really think Papa would treat you badly because of that?"

"...I mean..." Sinon's gaze fell. "Not really, but..."

"I'm not gonna tell Papa," Yui assured her. "But that doesn't mean you need to keep it a secret from him. He's not gonna start laughing at you non-stop just because you were impressed."

"Fair."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, Sinon is mentioned on the wiki as having gotten a Photon Sword to imitate Kirito's bullet-blocking and having failed. I'm assuming that she was reluctant to get rid of something that she blew 150,000 credits on because I don't think it's established whether GGO has NPC sellers buy stuff back nor whether there's specialized item traders like SAO/ALO.
> 
> Ugh. I do not know enough about guns to write GGO for very long. This is probably gonna be the last chapter for this game.


	10. GGO: Competition

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I want to be disappointed that it wasn't worth the download time, but it's hard to regret buying something when you paid all of eighty cents for it.
> 
> Okay, last chapter was GOING to be my last GGO chapter, but I had an idea I wanted to make use of. Despite having seen Ordinal Scale, I still don't have access to the Alicization anime, so forgive me if something about GGO has come up in Season 3 that I've gotten wrong. (And remember that I only go by the anime, so sorry if I've missed something in the novels.)

"You're gonna enter the Bullet of Bullets?"

Asuna knew that Yui had been enjoying herself in GGO - her second month's subscription had been paid entirely out of her in-game wallet - but a professional tournament had been the last thing she'd expected. At her dumbfounded question, Yui's only response was an awkward _"Please don't tell Papa."_

"I won't," Asuna insisted, "but... Why don't you want him to know about it?" She adjusted herself in the bath, careful to keep her phone out of the water. "Kirito would be happy to see you participate."

 _"Because I don't wanna disappoint him,"_ Yui insisted. _"If I don't get through the preliminaries, I don't want-"_

Asuna sat up abruptly. "Yui, stop."

_"Huh?"_

"Your Papa's not going to be 'disappointed' in you if you don't place," Asuna reprimanded. "You're playing GGO because you want to explore a different game. As long as you're enjoying yourself, that's **all** we care about. We don't care how well you place. We don't even care if you get wiped out in Round 1. If you're entering the BoB because you want to have fun, then **go have fun**. Don't worry about trying to make us happy, because you already are, okay?"

 _"...Okay, Mama,"_ Yui insisted. _"I'm sorry."_

Asuna shook her head. "Don't you worry," she assured her daughter. "I won't tell Kirito if you don't want me to, but don't think you have to hide it from him just because you don't know how well you're gonna do, alright?"

 _"Alright,"_ Yui conceded. _"But... I still don't want Papa to come over just to watch me. The Battle Royale is streamed, but the preliminary tournament is only shown in the lobby. If he asks, can you just tell him I'm joining Sinon for something with the rest of her squad?"_

"Isn't Sinon on a PK squad?" Asuna asked.

 _"...Well, it's not completely a lie..."_ Yui started awkwardly.

Asuna giggled. "So the whole party goes into BoB knowing they might fight each other, huh?" she mused. "I can't even imagine a guild like that in ALO."

 _"Me neither,"_ Yui agreed.

* * *

"Joining BoB? Are you sure?"

Yui had met up with Sinon in one of the game's taverns, the day before the preliminaries, to actually ask about the specifics of joining - and sure enough, Sinon was just as astonished as Asuna had been. "It can't hurt to give it a try," she insisted. "It's not like I've been totally avoiding PvP since I converted."

"I still have no idea how you're defending yourself against PK squads with that loadout," Sinon observed. Yui's setup wasn't much different than it was when she had first converted - two pistols to space out her reloads and a combat knife for emergencies at close range. "But... I'm not just talking about the combat."

"What do you mean?" Yui asked.

Sinon sighed. "BoB is the biggest tournament in the biggest professional VRMMO for the AmuSphere," she insisted. "That means the prizes are a lot higher-stakes than the game's natural enemies. It's not an in-game payout - if you join, you're in there to get paid. In yen."

Yui wasn't expecting that. "There's not an option for a credits payout?"

"No, there isn't," Sinon insisted. "Less ways it can be exploited. Someone could send a more capable player to fight on their behalf, have the credits transferred to them, and then take the payout themselves. And that's assuming the contest organizers didn't fall for the temptation of making the prize money a ceremony. So instead, they mail you a cheque made out to the recipient. Which means you're giving them your real-world information." She shook her head. "Me and Kirito were co-winners in BoB 3, so we should have each gotten half of the prize... but Kirito was there for Death Gun, so he left his registration blank."

"So you got the whole thing?" Yui asked.

Sinon shook her head. "I got half," she insisted. "Kirito got nothing."

"What?!"

"That's why I want you to be sure about this," Sinon insisted. "No one has any business telling anyone else that they're not gonna win; every participant has a chance. So if you enter, and you win, you get the payout... if you have a legitimate means to receive it. But if you don't, then _no one_ gets the payout."

She got to her feet. "Make sure you think that through before you show up to registration, okay?"

As Sinon left, Yui was left staring at her glass. Whoever designed the bars had accounted for players of all ages when they had designed the menus - the bars had everything from water to punch to soda and bottom-rate beer to highest-quality champagne (although Yui didn't know for sure whether in-game alcohol could get a player drunk, or whether it would do anything worse to _her_ ). Yet after that conversation, she had lost her thirst; she tapped the rim of her glass, bringing up a menu with which she was able to pass up on the rest of it.

The remaining contents vanished, and the NPC bartender picked up the glass as she contemplated. _I **want** to join BoB,_ she observed - and she knew it was true. _But if it's designed like that... should I? Is it worth the experience to risk robbing someone else of the prize, if I can't claim it?_

She took a deep breath and opened her menu; after hesitant moment, she opened a message to Kazuto's phone and began typing.

* * *

Registration: 20min

Knowing the time registration ended, and having a clock to go by, somehow made it look a lot closer than stepping into the Administrative Building and seeing the countdown on the overhead screen. As Yui looked around for the registration terminals, she found Sinon stepping in behind her - a smirk rose on the sniper's face, but it didn't quite seem friendly. "So you're sure, then?"

"I talked to Papa," Yui assured her. "If I win, we're getting the prize."

Sinon was surprised. "You mean...?"

Yui nodded. "In yen."

A sigh from the sniper. "Well, I guess he's gonna enjoy that." Then, more challengingly; "Assuming, of course, you're going to beat me."

"Well, naturally," Yui returned, a competitive smile on her own face. "Just because I'm able to get the payout doesn't mean I don't have to earn it."

With a nod, Sinon made to lead Yui to registration. "So, does he know you're entering BoB?" she asked.

"...Not quite," Yui insisted. "I just told him I wanted to pay him back for my subscription. Which _is_ true, but he thinks I'm just setting up credits-to-yen payments and made me promise I'm not gonna go yen-to-credits."

"That's fair," Sinon mused. "When I first set up to pay for my account, I was scared I'd click something the wrong way and put myself five thousand yen in debt. They make you go through, like, three confirmation screens before the transfer goes through, so no worries there."

Yui glanced around. "Where's the rest of your squad?" she asked. "Didn't you say most of you enter?"

"Yeah, BoB, not Squad Jam," Sinon insisted. "We don't join it as a group. Hell, we only work together as a squad because we know each others' behavior well enough not to screw each other over. We're not like Furin Kazan, where all the members are friends. There are some days I can barely stand working with those-"

"Ahem." The comment from nearby drew Sinon and Yui's attention to find a cowboy figure standing nearby. "You were saying something, Sinon?"

"Yes, I was," Sinon reprimanded, "don't interrupt."

Yui giggled at the dejected look on the cowboy's face. "You'd be Dyne, right?" she asked.

"Y-Yeah," Dyne confirmed awkwardly. "And you're..."

"I'm Yui." She offered her hand. "Pleased to meet you."

Dyne accepted the shake. "Back at ya," she mused. "You do a lot of PvP?"

"Not by choice," Yui admitted. "PKers are horrible people, and most of them target innocents for the fun of-"

"Aaand that's enough from Little Miss Cardinal," Sinon interrupted, setting a hand on Yui's shoulder. "Registration, remember?"

"R-Right..."

Yui started towards the terminal as Sinon shook her head. "Sorry about that," she insisted, "she's from SAO."

Dyne sucked in a breath through his teeth. "Okay, guess that's fair."

He and Sinon started towards terminals of their own as Yui opened the registration menu. Her user information popped up on the upper half of the terminal; immediately below was a blue disclaimer before the input for the prize registration.

_**WARNING  
**In the fields below, please enter your name and address in the real world. **  
** False data, while allowed, will result in the forfeiture of the right to top prizes._

Enter User Information  
Full Name: _________________________  
Address: __-__  
_________________________  
_________________________  
Phone Number: __________  
Email: __________________________

Yui stared at the screen for a long moment; then she opened her menu, brought up Kazuto's message, and tapped the name input field.

Full Name: Yui Kirigaya

Once the menu was filled out, she closed her menu and hit the confirmation; once the screen transitioned, she stepped back. "Done."

"Done here," Dyne confirmed a few minutes later.

Sinon took longer, but soon gave a "Done" as well. "I'm in Block O."

"Oh, no," Yui bemoaned.

"Oh, crap," Dyne grumbled.

"Oh, well," Sinon sighed, "at least we're getting it over with. How's our lineup?"

Yui checked the brackets. "Looks like... me and Dyne have two fights before we meet," she mused, "and the winner meets Sinon in the semifinals."

Dyne chuckled. "Then I guess I'll beat you then," he retorted.

"Wow," Yui muttered as he took off. "Is he always this... sure of himself?"

"Only until things start going wrong," Sinon mused. "If you get him down to half HP without killing him, don't be surprised if he chooses to resign instead of get finished off. That being said..."

Yui turned to her.

Sinon's gaze had become focused. "If we're meeting in the semifinals," she observed, "that means we're not both going to the Battle Royale. So you better do what your father didn't, and give me all you've got."

"Of course," she insisted, setting her face. "I'll hold nothing back."

* * *

"Papa wasn't kidding, it is intimidating in there."

Yui's comment as she closed the door to the changing room got her a sigh from Sinon. "It's a tactical opportunity is what it is," she corrected. "They're sitting out in the open, showing off their guns. I told Kirito the same thing, wait to equip your weapon until you're transported to the pre-battle room. Otherwise, you're giving your opponents the opportunity to counter-plan." She shook her head. "The idiots with optic weapons are the worst of them. If they'd kept them hidden, we wouldn't know to bring our defensive fields until after the first few rounds."

"Were there people with optic weapons?" Yui asked. "I didn't notice."

Sinon turned to her. "You didn't?"

"No, I..." Yui sighed. "I guess I... wasn't paying attention."

Silence filled the changing room as she sat down.

"...You experience it differently, don't you?" Sinon asked. "GGO."

"In a way," Yui admitted. "Fundamentally, it's not that different. There's still no... _permanent_ risk. I know that, I know that none of those weapons can do anything... _fatal_." Her gaze fell. "But virtual worlds are the only worlds I can experience with all my senses. So the feeling of danger is there."

"What about pain?" Sinon asked. "Players can only feel pain based on the game as dictated by the developers. Most games have the pain inhibitors cranked all the way up and locked."

"And for good reason," Yui insisted. "If those are turned off, it can give you phantom pain in the real world. That's how Papa saved Mama from ALO the first time - Sugou couldn't see out of his left eye." Then, changing the subject; "Anyways, I'm the same. I don't feel pain any more or less than anyone else in a given game."

Sinon hummed, concerned. "What about as a Navi-Pixie in ALO?"

Yui's gaze fell. "It's... not completely painless," she admitted. "But it's not very substantial, either. And besides, a Navi-Pixie has unlimited flight, a small frame, and no real harm. As long as I don't use my whole body in a dungeon, pain isn't even a possibility."

"I'll keep that in mind," Sinon mused.

She glanced up at the display on the inside of the waiting room. "There's still plenty of time before the first round," she mused. "Do you have a defensive field for optic weapons?"

"Yes," Yui admitted, opening her menu, "thanks."

* * *

In time, the preliminaries began, transporting the competitors to their pre-battle area. Yui found herself standing on a hexagon of orange in a black void; acting quickly, she opened her menu, equipping her pistols and combat knife as quickly as she could. Only once she was fully equipped did she realize there was a screen before her - and she promptly felt dumb for her panic when she realized it had a countdown that looked like it had started at sixty. It also showed the name of the battlefield for the round, and the header of the window showed the matchup.

_Yui vs. Pitohui_  
_Prep time: 41 sec  
_ _Field: ancient forest_

At about the same time, Sinon - who was much more experienced with the BoB procedure - was carefully equipping herself as well. Not that she was expecting Hecate to surprise too many people - never mind the BoB, she'd met several people wandering around Glocken who wanted to buy such a rare item from her - but out of good practice. Once it was comfortable over her shoulder, she made to equip her own pistol.

Her finger hesitated over the button.

 _I never use this thing,_ she realized. _If someone's too close for me to use Hecate, I'm better off going for cover than going for my sidearm. Should I just get some extra ammo ready, or...?_

After a moment, she sighed.

_God, I hope Kirito isn't watching from the lobby._

She moved down her menu to select her Photon Sword, causing it to appear on her belt; then she raised her gaze to the screen in time to see the timer hit 0.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Got the scene for the BoB registration, paused the clip, and got the literal translation before writing. I tried my damnedest to get it all accurate while still sounding natural in English. Meanwhile, with thirty competitors in the battle royale, taken from both finalists in each block, that means there has to be at least fifteen blocks - which, alphabetically, means they have A-O.
> 
> This is the first time I've gotten inspired for a player Yui shot so immediately after uploading the last one. Frick it, I'm marking this one and the next one as July chapters and updating now.


	11. GGO: Advantage

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Once again, I intended to have one chapter to cover a series of events and ended up writing two. Mostly because I couldn't justify cutting straight to the semifinals.
> 
> Incidentally, I don't think the anime says clearly whether there's a cap on BoB competitors or if the tournaments are just divided into however many competitors there are. Kirito wins his first round and complains "four more of these grueling battles" await him; later, the captions say he wins the 4th round, and then Spiegel says that "next up is the semifinals", which means that Kirito was just concerned with qualifying for the Battle Royale. But there's no indicator of whether that's a system-mandated thing or whether BoB 3 just ended up with that many competitors in Block F.

"What's this about?"

Yui's first round in the BoB preliminaries had been confounding in very short order. First was the environment - the 'ancient forest' was a small wood with a positively **giant** tree in the center, the surroundings of which were relatively clear and provided a someone open battlefield. Then there was the fact that Yui had managed to get a good look at that giant tree _without meeting her opponent_ \- she had no idea whether the forestry was to blame, or if her opponent was being evasive on purpose. And now there was something else unusual - she had found herself almost tripping over what appeared to be a _shotgun_ , hidden between the semi-exposed roots of one of the surrounding trees.

She regarded the weapon she had found with great confusion. _Why would they have weapons lying around?_ she wondered. _And why in the **preliminaries**? I mean, that might make sense in the Battle Royale, but the preliminary tournament is a series of one-on-one fights. That doesn't make any sense._

Confused, she set the shotgun down and continued through the forestry. To her concern, it wasn't long before she found **another** weapon - a machine gun, propped up against a different tree.

 _Now this is getting suspicious,_ Yui observed, reaching for the weapon. _Is this some sort of design that's going to plague the rest of the-_

All of a sudden, she found herself in the path of the bullet; Yui quickly leapt aside, leaving the Prediction Line to extend past her as the bullet raced down it. As she turned around, she found her opponent right up in front of her - a tall, dark woman in black, with tattoos upon her cheeks, holding a revolver to her head.

"No one said you could touch."

Yui reacted quickly, drawing her combat knife and striking the gun away before the woman could fire; the shot flew past her, and Yui quickly jabbed the knife into her wrist for HP damage before putting distance between them. "Where did you-!?"

The woman - Pitohui, as Yui abruptly recalled - brought her revolver around, slamming the edge of the barrel into Yui's forehead and leaving her reeling. She quickly spun round to right herself as the woman grabbed the machine gun; no sooner had she turned it forward than Yui found herself leaping away, taking cover before she could start to spray.

 _Don't tell me...!_ Yui abruptly realized where all the weapons came from. _She's the one who put all those guns here?! But that would mean...! She doesn't just have one loadout... and she doesn't want to waste time with the menu?_

Gritting her teeth, Yui drew one of her pistols in the hand opposite her knife; she moved one foot past the side of the tree, and as soon as she was in the path of the bullet she turned round and dashed aside. Pitohui was already firing at where she had been; Yui took aim and started to fire at her head, only to find her ducking aside.

_If she's got her weapons around here, I can't give her the home advantage! If I can't take her out quickly, I need to take her guns!_

She dashed forward as Pitohui made to take aim at her; no sooner was her finger on the trigger than Yui dropped to the ground, letting the shots fly over her head. The recoil of the weapon meant correcting her aim downward was not a reflexive action; she quickly kicked up at the woman's hands, knocking the machine gun out of her grip, before coming up with her pistol and firing at her head.

Pitohui dove out of the way, twisting into a cartwheel as Yui caught the machine gun under her arm; she started to dash away, and Yui realized she was going for a different weapon - one she hadn't found yet. Thinking quickly, she dashed in the direction of the shotgun, finding the difference in their two trajectories were tracing around the giant tree in the center.

 _She's surrounded the clearing with weapons?_ Her gaze turned to her own path. _Then... maybe I can find them all before she has the chance to use them!_

She holstered her pistol, sheathed her knife, and grabbed the machine gun firmly as she approached the shotgun. Without hardly slowing down, she grabbed the weapon and continued on at a different angle. Sure enough, she found another gun there - this one was a grenade launcher of some description that had Yui double-taking. She charged the giant tree and set the three weapons she had claimed there, drew a plasma grenade (Asuna and Sinon had on separate occasions lectured her about the dangers of relying on equipment when items were an option), and primed it before setting it on the ground and dashing away.

She hadn't made it halfway to the tree cover before she was in the path of another bullet; she quickly halted, and the Prediction Line travelled an inch ahead of her chest before freezing as the bullet was fired. As soon as it passed her, she stepped back, turning towards the source to find Pitohui was standing at the edge of the forestry, holding a rifle with a _bayonet_ on it.

Yui's grenade went off as they regarded each other; the tree obscured most of the blast, but the positioning of the grenade meant that the weapons Yui had snatched were sent flying before they shattered. Yui promptly seized the opportunity, drawing one of her pistols again and taking aim while the shards were still in the air; her Bullet Circle closed around Pitohui's weapon, and she fired as rapidly as she was able before making to charge forward.

The shots slammed into her arms, and she stumbled back as Yui made to approach. As she got into range, Pitohui made to thrust the bayonet at her; she promptly sidestepped the weapon and bashed the butt of her pistol into the woman's nose, leaving her reeling. A swift kick to the rifle caused it to fall to the ground, and Yui drew out another grenade and primed it before slamming it into the ground next to the rifle and dashing away, hoping - but not depending - on the blast taking out her opponent as well.

Indeed, Pitohui was already running at the next weapon for herself; as the grenade went off, the both dove for the oddly bright shape that was sitting between the tree's roots. The two of them found themselves wrestling at close combat; Yui's smaller frame was to her disadvantage, but she somehow managed to keep the woman for reaching for the weapon; yet she didn't have the freedom of movement to go for her knife, and their tussle found them both rolling away. Realizing that they were both taking HP damage - and that Pitohui was doing more than she was taking back - Yui forced the two of them to separate, drawing both her pistols as they got to her feet.

"Oh, my," the woman mused, regarding her loadout. "Don't tell me you think two guns gives you double the power?"

"Double the ammo," Yui corrected.

Pitohui made a sound halfway between a laugh and a scoff. "The slow man's reload."

Yui glared. "Now you're making me angry."

"Right back at you, little one," Pitohui growled.

She went for her hip, where Yui realized she still had the revolver she had been using earlier; as it came up, Yui dove out of the way before it could be fired, leaving the Prediction Line streaking past her leg. She righted herself and brought one pistol around, firing at Pitohui; the shots missed her head, slamming into her arm and torso for HP damage as she tried to correct her aim. Yui ducked out of the way of this shot as well, letting the shot fly over her head as she dove forward; the butt of one pistol slammed into the body of Pitohui's revolver, and she brought the other one up to bash the barrel into the woman's face and pull the trigger.

Pitohui reeled back and hit the ground; and her body started to shimmer as she glared up at Yui, one eye covered in a red grid from HP damage.

"H-How did you...?"

Her body shattered into fragments, and Yui loosed a terrified sigh, slumping over and setting her pistols against her legs. _I am never gonna tell Papa he's too slow again,_ she swore to herself. _It was hard enough just moving my body out of the way with my AGI. No wonder he got dual wielding in SAO, if he's got the sheer reflexes to put his sword in the path of the Prediction Line of every-_

She froze in mid-thought, raising her gaze to the victory banner that had appeared before her. _The Prediction Line? But..._

She didn't have the chance to think further; light surrounded her, carrying her away from the battlefield as the victor.

* * *

A figure lifted its head out of cover - and right into the path of the smallest possible Bullet Circle.

Sinon pulled the trigger before she had the chance to realize it wasn't a human; she cursed under her breath as her opponent's decoy took her hidden shot and shattered. With a curse, she pulled the lever on her weapon to dismiss the spent casing and watched as her target dashed sideways from cover of a hay bale, dashing across the pasture before the barn in which Sinon had found her position. His trajectory was slow enough that she trusted her ability to lead him, but her Prediction Line would be visible.

Unless...

Her opponent vanished behind another bale; Sinon quickly moved to the opposite side, let her Bullet Circle condense, and fired again.

The target dashed out, and straight _into_ the Prediction Line of a center-mass direct hit.

Sinon smirked as she lifted her gaze from the scope, pulling the lever again over the sound of her opponent shattering. "You had perfectly good cover right there," she reprimanded. "Should've stayed where you were and waited for me to change positions, instead of trying to close in on me."

She picked up Hecate, holding it between her hands as the victory banner appeared. After a few moments, the post-battle transport took her away, and she found herself standing in the pre-battle void; her opponent had already wrapped up their battle for themselves. With a deep breath, she lifted her gaze to the display hovering before her.

_Sinon vs. Yui  
Prep time: 55 sec  
Field: mountain ridge_

"Don't go easy on me," she warned the screen, as though it would carry her words to Yui. "I'm never gonna forgive you if you do what your father did, and piss me off with an easy target."

With a sigh, she slung Hecate over her shoulder, reaching for the Photon Sword at her hip. She had yet to draw it, the same as her pistol - yet if there was one fight in which she was expecting to need it, it was this one. She knew Yui preferred to get close if she had the option; if Sinon couldn't snipe her before she was at the sort of ranges she liked to fire from, a Photon Sword would make a better counter than a pistol would.

The transport kicked in; when it faded, she was standing on a rocky terrain. She was _high_ on the rocky terrain, at that; she knew this map had a winding ascent, but she was almost surprised at how good her luck was. The path was just about a straight line down from here; the arc and fall of the mountain face meant she didn't have much of a view around the bend, but the distance between her and that turn was plenty of room for a sniper to aim through, and not a lot of room for the victim to react if they were between cover when the shot was fired. Rocky walls were scattered all over the battlefield, and although no one without a Minigun could penetrate them (and no one _with_ a Minigun would enter a solo event like BoB), they were still too small to make it ambiguous where the target was. 

She drew her Photon Sword and used it to carve a gap in one such wall, then set up her Hecate, taking a prone position. "Way to give a sniper the advantage, randomizer."

It took a while - Yui must have spawned clear at the opposite end of the map - but eventually, she saw movement. Yui was quick on her feet; no sooner had Sinon seen her come around the bend than she slid behind cover, keeping herself hidden. Patiently, Sinon set her finger on the trigger, letting the Bullet Circle move and keeping her pulse steady as she waited for her opponent to act.

Yui dashed out from her rock, charging straight up the slope.

Sinon centered the Bullet Circle on her torso.

She was still pulling the trigger when Yui leapt aside, and the bullet flew past her, slamming into the stone behind her.

"What?"

Sinon quickly pulled her lever as Yui righted herself, drawing one of her pistols as she resumed running. Knowing she didn't have the hidden shot anymore, she took aim anyways, waiting until Yui was just about out of reasonable sniping distance before taking aim; she was hoping that the shorter range would give Yui less reaction time. But to no avail; no sooner had her Bullet Circle closed in than Yui moved aside, the shot flying past when Sinon pulled the trigger too late.

With a curse, Sinon shot to her feet, pulling Hecate out of her gap and pointing it at Yui without the scope as Yui took aim at her in return. Sinon fired first, and the Bullet Line on her forehead vanished as Yui leapt out of the way of the shot, the bullet flying past her. Sinon let her rifle fall, going for her Photon Sword; Yui tried to fire at Sinon's hand, and at the same instant she moved it aside, the blade ignited, hot pink light blocking the Prediction Line and letting the bullet slam against it.

She swept the blade forward without any finesse whatsoever; Yui ducked under the swing, aiming a kick at Sinon's arm. She kept her grip on the weapon as it was knocked aside, bringing it into a spin in that direction; Yui had brought her pistol forward, making to fire, yet Sinon's swing went right through that weapon, stopping the bullet's path before it could even leave the barrel and then cutting the barrel open to leave it shattering in Yui's hand.

Yui dropped under the next swing, twisting into a backwards roll to put some distance between her and Sinon as she went for her other pistol and her knife. Sinon tried to close the gap with a rough lunge; Yui sidestepped the blow easily and swung her knife at the offending blade.

Her arm pulled back.

Her _weapon_ didn't - the Photon Sword fell to the ground, blade alight, and her hand, still closed around the handle, shattered against the ground.

Yui aimed her pistol at Sinon's face, and the Prediction Line appeared, wavering on her forehead.

Silence filled the area for a moment as the two of them stood there, an instant from a terrifying defeat.

"How long?"

Yui's question caught Sinon off-guard, and she blinked. "What?"

"How long is there between fights if both combatants are ready?" Yui demanded. "You said limb regeneration takes two minutes in GGO, is there enough time between fights?"

"Th-the intermission has an accelerated regen rate," Sinon insisted, "but you're not-"

She didn't get the chance to finish; Yui turned away, driving her gun into its holster as she proclaimed, "Resign."

A confirmation panel appeared before her, and Sinon started. "Yui, what are you-!?"

She didn't have the chance to stop her; Yui's hand struck the panel, and she vanished in a flash of light.

"What was that...?" Sinon shook her head as the victory banner appeared, stepping towards her fallen Photon Sword; she turned off the blade with her still-intact hand and grabbed the strap of her Hecate. "What's wrong with her?"

* * *

Yui made her way to the nearest bar to the Administrative Building; once there, she found herself a back room, sent an inter-player message to Sinon, was notified that it wouldn't arrive until she was done with the tournament, and ordered a drink. She was barely finished her first cola when the door opened, and she turned to find Sinon stepping inside.

"Hi," she greeted.

"Hey." Sinon's mood was a lot darker than it had been before the semifinals; she closed the door behind her, but remained before it. "You wanna explain what happened in there?"

Yui tapped the rim of her glass. "I didn't think there would be much to explain," she admitted. "You beat me, and advanced to the finals."

"I didn't _beat_ you," Sinon reprimanded, stepping up to the table. "You had me at your mercy. You were too close for me to use Hecate, you took my Photon Sword - and my hand with it! You don't get to tell me you beat me when I didn't even shoot you in a-!"

"You **did** shoot me," Yui interrupted.

Sinon blinked. "What?"

Yui sighed. "Your first one," she insisted. "You should have shot me."

"...Now that you say that," Sinon realized, "you... you dodged it. You had no way to know that was coming. How did you avoid that?"

"I felt the Prediction Line," Yui confessed.

"But that doesn't make sense," Sinon protested. "That was my first shot from a prone position, it shouldn't have generated a Prediction Line."

Yui shook her head. "That's not how it works."

"You're not the veteran here," Sinon reprimanded, "I think I know how-"

"No," Yui insisted, "I mean... That's not how _Cardinal_ works."

Sinon narrowed her gaze. "Cardinal?"

"The Seed uses a limited version of Cardinal," Yui explained, "but that just stops it from doing drastic things like creating and destroying maps, or putting boss-level encounters where they don't belong, or... other things that were only important for SAO. Cardinal is still responsible for a lot of things in any system that runs it. Enemy behaviour, enemy spawns, NPC behaviour, quest placement..." She shook her head. "Anything that isn't specifically and individually programmed by the developers, Cardinal controls. And even for things that are, Cardinal is what keeps them all running together, independent of human maintenance."

"You mean... Cardinal is generating the Prediction Lines?" Sinon asked.

Yui nodded. "The developers implemented the Bullet Prediction Line, but Cardinal is what makes sure they're always there. It's calculating the path of every bullet, regardless of whether it's influenced by the Bullet Circle or not, and generating the Prediction Lines moment by moment." She turned to Sinon. "And I can _feel_ them - regardless of whether a player can see them."

"You don't want to win the BoB because of who you are," Sinon realized.

" _What_ I am," Yui interrupted.

"No, Yui, listen to me," Sinon insisted, stepping up to her. "You're not a **thing** , you're a _person_. Maybe having Cardinal's influence means you have an unfair advantage, but _you_ chose not to win because of it. That's not programming, that's a _moral decision_."

Yui turned to her. "But-"

"You **could** have used it," Sinon proclaimed, "and no one would have been the wiser. You realize that, don't you? Every player uses the system differently - baiting players into action, preparing for every opportunity, or just using whatever loadout is broken in the current engine. No one would know that Yui is getting hints from Cardinal, they'd just assume you're lucky or clever. Hell, **you** could have just assumed you were getting lucky, and ignored the idea that it was Cardinal giving you hints. But you chose to withhold that - because you believed it was _morally_ wrong."

She set her hand on Yui's shoulder. "You made what you believed was the _right_ decision - and that makes you more human than some of the best players in GGO."

Yui sighed. "Sinon..."

Sinon smiled, stepping back. "Tomorrow's the tournament proper," she insisted. "Will you be watching?"

"...Mhm," Yui insisted. "If I'm not in GGO, I'll watch it on MMO Stream with Mama and Papa."

"Glad to hear it," Sinon insisted. "Maybe we can go for a hunt afterwards. See if you can't get your father to join us."

She opened her menu and made to log out; after a moment, Yui did the same.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Pitohui has proficiency with just about every gun type in GGO... and didn't qualify for BoB 2 OR BoB 3. That's just the difference in the level of skill between BoB and Squad Jam. I really hope I'm not violating canon in saying that Yui's advantage didn't stop her from winning what she wouldn't have won anyways.


End file.
